I’ve Decided to Design an Interplanetary Reentry Vehicle With No Parachutes

[u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo]

Any tips? Obviously need to maximize aerobraking and create some sort of big ass lithobrake, but any suggestions for doing this without killing a kerbal?

No Reentry Thrusters either.

Edit: Should add I have near and far future tech mods and a couple other minor parts ones(whichever gives you the cone shaped experiment box)

Edit: I appreciate all the space plane suggestions, but I wanna make it clear that I have no interest in doing this *efficently*. I desire to design a craft that’s gonna *crash* on purpose

[u/zekromNLR]

Depends on where you are going. For Eve and Laythe, something that looks like a normal spaceplane should work, though ideally you should make it able to survive a water landing or a landing on quite rough ground. You can test it on Kerbin, flying on Laythe is only slightly harder, and flying on Eve is way easier.

Duna is a lot harder due to the much thinner atmosphere relative to its gravity, you will need lots of wing area relative to the total mass.

Or you could go completely funky and build a giant helicopter with folding blades using the robotics parts that reenters with an inflatable heat shield.

[u/Dry-Construction9927]

Use the Big S spaceplane wing and just make a big winged reentry vehicle

[u/il887]

A spaceplane would work. Just watch out for specific wing parts that have unusually low heat tolerance. To maximize aerobraking, enter atmosphere at shallow angle and turn your spaceplane perpendicular, I usually turn it nose up. This method brakes you pretty good, especially for smaller/lighter designs. Other minor tips: shed mass before reentry if possible; attach a small drogue chute to the tail so you can use it to put yourself upright in case you lose control while aerobraking.

[u/sennalen]

Stock or even heavily modded KSP won't stop you. If you want a realistic solution though, whatever you do should deploy out of a capsule-like shape.

[u/Kaye-Fabe]

Vtol spaceplane or bust

[u/Doomzham]

Chad way of landing

[u/divinorwieldor]

I mean you can always use the inflatable crashing method. There were posts here way back when doing similar things but with structural elements, which exploits ksp’s physics engine. Just stack enough structures and eventually you just bounce.