9:23 I realized after making this that it's usually not necessary to wait for the booster to rise out of the atmosphere to switch back to the upper stage. Just switch with the bracket keys as soon as the boost back is done and you'll probably still be close enough to the other vessel.
Great vid! Remember that when landing you should switch the auto SAS to radial out when your speed gets below 15m/s, if you don't the craft wobbles around. The mod trajectories also has the landing icon feature but accounts for atmospheric drag, I highly recommend you get it.
Finally, someone who makes a ksp video about recovering the first stage launching once and not twice (one for the first stage landing and the other for reaching orbit)
ya but its pretty easy if your just launching a small or medium payload but, whilst possible, more difficult to land the first stage when the payload is to large
There's a method I really like which isn't really mentioned in this video: wings. Attach wings, ailerons, landing gear onto a booster along with a nosecone on the top (probably the trickiest part of building such a booster). . Make sure the booster is nose-heavy when empty so it doesn't spin out of control on descent. Attach the upper stage on top of the nosecone, and then fly it like you would with the powered landing, but instead of doing the hoverslam you gently glide the booster down like an airplane.
With only +450 hours in the game, I'm still learning. This was a great tool to allow some new ideas to form and for some old ideas to be improved upon. I tried once "saving" the debris, but I now realize this was much more complex than strapping a few parachutes on the hulls and hoping they would land just fine.
Great guide, but technically the savings are inflated because if the booster were designed to burn up or crash, it wouldn't have a bunch of the extra added equipment that is included in the final recovery value.
i prefer doing a larger upper stage and then doing RTLS for the booster. When i go fully reusable, i also make the second stage go to the launch site after deploying the payload. it's really fun trying to recover stuff from orbit or even just boosters.
Awesome video. Thank you very much for showing this. I've not been brave enough to try recovering the first stage without shoots till now. Now I know how and will give it a try.
Wow, I had no idea this was possible. I thought KSP auto-destroyed spent stages in an atmosphere when u move more than 5km away from them. Thanks, my career mode wallet thanks you
Like the video! I tend to be very lazy so i just use my cheapish, high payload fraction design of 2 solid fuel stages with recoverable liquid fuel 3rd stage. I play with procedural parts mod so i can tune solid fuel stages well. 1st stage = trw 4, gets rocket to 300m/s, 2nd stage = trw 1.3, gets ap above 70km with about 2000m/s velocity and 3rd finishes orbital injection.
to simplify RTLS stuff, you can fly a pop up trajectory. Basically flying the trajectory so it only goes a little downrange to copensate for rotation or kerbin, and the planet will rotate so the KSC ends up right where your booster comes down. I think this was the original plan for Kister
I recommend the mod FMRS (Flight Manager for Re-useable Systems) basically, when you separate, you can jump back in time to when you separated, and land the booster. When you recover the booster, it automatically switches to where you left off with the second stage.
@@arandomcommenter412 The mod works just fine, maybe my wording didn't convey the function of the mod correctly. Try using the mod for yourself and you should see what i am talking about.
The other alternative for average launch vehicles such as Ariane 5 style or just slightly bigger, is return to launch site after an orbit. Core stage gets the craft to orbit and then boosts back before the next pass over the KSC. If you time it right with the same altitude and speed (and inclination), you can use parachutes only, otherwise, keep a little fuel for trajectory ajdusting or winglets fo act as maneuvering grid fins (don't have winglets at the bottom for that to work) I recover all my KNES Ariane 5 core stages that way (and the boosters with parachutes into the ocean). Kerbin stock scale is small enough for that to work, don't expect to be able to do that in bigger scales because reentry speeds will be way too high for that to work, for that SSTOs are probably a better solution.
this is why I wish there was a mod to prevent the automatic despawn in atmo. that combined with KOS would be great for things like this (say a Falcon Heavy Analog where you'd be landing two or even three boosters).
I frequently use a flight path of a gentle gravity turn that gets my apoapsis up to about 180k alt. At ap stage and burn to circularise, then switch to the first stage and it will roughly put you back on a landing course (ish) with the ksc
The parachute landing doesn’t work all the time if your first stage is too big, because after it lands in the water it will always tip over and smash into pieces. It’s very annoying because irl water doesn’t vaporize things unless they impact very hard and fast, but ksp always treats water like a brick wall, no matter how fast you hit it.
If you’re completely insane then there’s also the good ‘ol “turn the booster into a plane” approach. And the “catch it with a gigantic helicopter” approach.
My first stage rocket is very very powerful and gigantic, it can carry like 78 tons to LKO and still fully reusable! The first stage I gotta use both method to safely recover the booster. It use 8 small parachutes, cut at 1k altitude. Then do a powered burn and land on a drone ship!
Well, the land on a drone ship is still in progress though. I've never complete that before. The maneuvering has to be critical to land a 3.75m diameter with 5 extra 1.875m tank around it = 5m tank with 11 vector engine! the outer engine ring have locked gimbal and the rest it just 75% gimbal.
This is like the most powerful, most efficient, most less cost suffocation for carrier if you able to land... in one piece. So that why I add 4 retractable custom landing legs so that act like a shock resistance when touch down. Most landing going to kill all vertical velocity speed until
Full documentation about how my rocket work! First after lift of, it does a pretty normal gravity turn and follow prograde at T-52s until apoapsis. After having remaining 300-600 m/s of DeltaV, it started MECO and using the SpaceX's flip maneuver when separation! The second stage quickly go to orbit or at least near orbit. Then the first stage tries to use 10-100 m/s of DeltaV after to maneuver with 3/11 engines active to the correct landing spot. If it isn't enough DeltaV for maneuvering, the airbrake with tiny Vernor RCS thrusters to make tiny change to the landing location. After that at 2500-5000m, 6 orange parachutes slow down the vehicle after the engine try to kill all horizontal speed! At 500m, landing legs deploy as shock absorptions, cut parachute and safely touchdown at
another way that I prefer using, is SSTO's, as in having the whole booster get to orbit, drop off the payload, and return to kerbin wherever I want, I have an SSTO like that, that can deliver 17.5 tons to LKO, but a derivative of it has extra fuel tanks that are very low cost and drop off early in flight brings it's payload to 55 tons to LKO, so only a very small cost is lost
Me using science mod: HM YES VERY USEFUL for real this really helped because i was trying to figure out how to use the kerbal engineer landing display thingy
If it's right after you separate the two stages, just use one of the bracket keys. If you're switching back after you're far from the first stage, open the map (M) and click on it. If you don't see it in the map then make sure probes are visible with the bar at the top of the screen. Good luck!
@@Skiesaremine That's weird, not sure what's causing that. All I can tell you is that the landing info only shows up when you're in a suborbital trajectory (collision course), also the target doesn't like to show up on the raised ground around the KSC buildings, and also the target is hard to see in vessel view unless you're close to the ground. If none of those are the cause of your issues then I'd try reinstalling KER and verifying integrity of the game's files if you're on steam. HTH
I have an idea What if you make a rocket with a reusable lower stage, but instead of powered landing or parachutes, you add deploying wings so it can land on the runway saving a LOT of money and fuel (patent pending) ok so i tried it and it didn't work but the idea is there if you wanna try
Using more fuel is a better option than deploying wings on the 1st stage, since those wings can be quite heavy and that weight could go to the payload instead. Having more fuel means more mass, yes, but that mass can be converted to velocity in order to land or boost back. Having something around 8 parachutes can also help with reusable stages, because that means you don't need fuel for landing, and they're much lighter than wings, giving more potential to the payload mass. (If you wanted to try wings again, make sure the CoM is in-front of the CoL when the booster is empty upon returning to the KSC, which you can simulate in the SPH)
parachutes alone literally nvr work i think it always burns up on reentry idfk but it will just disapear off the map. iv tried air brakes doesnt seem to make a diff. i always just end up having to put a probe on and land it myself.
@@_RandomPea yeah, when they’re near each other. When you’ve already made it into orbit with one stage, you’re too far away to do that with the other stage
As much as I love it, it's equally the worst game on console for its stability issues imo. But the needs outweigh the bad points, gotta push out from Kerbin and be a multi planetary species !! ;)
![Capturing asteroids and what to do with them [KSP 1.12]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FkL-MtbxMXo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Capturing asteroids and what to do with them [KSP 1.12]](/img/tr.png)
9:23 I realized after making this that it's usually not necessary to wait for the booster to rise out of the atmosphere to switch back to the upper stage. Just switch with the bracket keys as soon as the boost back is done and you'll probably still be close enough to the other vessel.
Well the problem is there's a maximum distance length between your vessel to the booster
Great vid! Remember that when landing you should switch the auto SAS to radial out when your speed gets below 15m/s, if you don't the craft wobbles around. The mod trajectories also has the landing icon feature but accounts for atmospheric drag, I highly recommend you get it.
Sup bill
@@jebediahkerman6819 sup jeb. How’s the eve surface base?
The hecc
@Bill Kerman you mean colony?
@@tTRITUS do you not know how to @ people
Finally, someone who makes a ksp video about recovering the first stage launching once and not twice (one for the first stage landing and the other for reaching orbit)
ya but its pretty easy if your just launching a small or medium payload but, whilst possible, more difficult to land the first stage when the payload is to large
@@canadianrocketman3475just build a giant rocket!!
I made a 400 meter tall rocket recently
There's a method I really like which isn't really mentioned in this video: wings. Attach wings, ailerons, landing gear onto a booster along with a nosecone on the top (probably the trickiest part of building such a booster). . Make sure the booster is nose-heavy when empty so it doesn't spin out of control on descent. Attach the upper stage on top of the nosecone, and then fly it like you would with the powered landing, but instead of doing the hoverslam you gently glide the booster down like an airplane.
ah yes, the turningyourbooooosterintoaplane method. I usually do that to, but not w/ the 1st stage :)
You managed to fly those rockets perfectly. Idk how, but the way u flew those rockets was flawless
Want my advise? use the spacebar.
@@CactusforceX damm should have thought of that
@@CactusforceX Damn, i used to right click every part to enable them. Thanks for the advice!
Great video, I thought I needed several mods to make this happen and you made it look easy
With only +450 hours in the game, I'm still learning. This was a great tool to allow some new ideas to form and for some old ideas to be improved upon. I tried once "saving" the debris, but I now realize this was much more complex than strapping a few parachutes on the hulls and hoping they would land just fine.
Great guide, but technically the savings are inflated because if the booster were designed to burn up or crash, it wouldn't have a bunch of the extra added equipment that is included in the final recovery value.
The engine alone makes it worth it
i prefer doing a larger upper stage and then doing RTLS for the booster. When i go fully reusable, i also make the second stage go to the launch site after deploying the payload.
it's really fun trying to recover stuff from orbit or even just boosters.
Thank you for the explainer! This helps a lot.
You're welcome! I'm mainly making these to teach myself editing, so I'm happy to hear it's actually helping people too.
Awesome video. Thank you very much for showing this. I've not been brave enough to try recovering the first stage without shoots till now. Now I know how and will give it a try.
Wow, I had no idea this was possible. I thought KSP auto-destroyed spent stages in an atmosphere when u move more than 5km away from them. Thanks, my career mode wallet thanks you
Like the video! I tend to be very lazy so i just use my cheapish, high payload fraction design of 2 solid fuel stages with recoverable liquid fuel 3rd stage. I play with procedural parts mod so i can tune solid fuel stages well. 1st stage = trw 4, gets rocket to 300m/s, 2nd stage = trw 1.3, gets ap above 70km with about 2000m/s velocity and 3rd finishes orbital injection.
to simplify RTLS stuff, you can fly a pop up trajectory. Basically flying the trajectory so it only goes a little downrange to copensate for rotation or kerbin, and the planet will rotate so the KSC ends up right where your booster comes down. I think this was the original plan for Kister
I recommend the mod FMRS (Flight Manager for Re-useable Systems) basically, when you separate, you can jump back in time to when you separated, and land the booster. When you recover the booster, it automatically switches to where you left off with the second stage.
That seems like the kraken would love it
@@arandomcommenter412 The mod works just fine, maybe my wording didn't convey the function of the mod correctly. Try using the mod for yourself and you should see what i am talking about.
very interesting and complete video
perfect video, thanks
The other alternative for average launch vehicles such as Ariane 5 style or just slightly bigger, is return to launch site after an orbit. Core stage gets the craft to orbit and then boosts back before the next pass over the KSC. If you time it right with the same altitude and speed (and inclination), you can use parachutes only, otherwise, keep a little fuel for trajectory ajdusting or winglets fo act as maneuvering grid fins (don't have winglets at the bottom for that to work)
I recover all my KNES Ariane 5 core stages that way (and the boosters with parachutes into the ocean).
Kerbin stock scale is small enough for that to work, don't expect to be able to do that in bigger scales because reentry speeds will be way too high for that to work, for that SSTOs are probably a better solution.
this is why I wish there was a mod to prevent the automatic despawn in atmo. that combined with KOS would be great for things like this (say a Falcon Heavy Analog where you'd be landing two or even three boosters).
Powered Landing is way cooler when SpaceX landed the first Flacon 9!
"cannot switch vessels while in atmosphere" omfg
I frequently use a flight path of a gentle gravity turn that gets my apoapsis up to about 180k alt. At ap stage and burn to circularise, then switch to the first stage and it will roughly put you back on a landing course (ish) with the ksc
The parachute landing doesn’t work all the time if your first stage is too big, because after it lands in the water it will always tip over and smash into pieces. It’s very annoying because irl water doesn’t vaporize things unless they impact very hard and fast, but ksp always treats water like a brick wall, no matter how fast you hit it.
Any tips on recovering extremely heavy boosters? The kind that violently explode if you so much as sneeze on them
If you’re completely insane then there’s also the good ‘ol “turn the booster into a plane” approach. And the “catch it with a gigantic helicopter” approach.
My first stage rocket is very very powerful and gigantic, it can carry like 78 tons to LKO and still fully reusable! The first stage I gotta use both method to safely recover the booster. It use 8 small parachutes, cut at 1k altitude. Then do a powered burn and land on a drone ship!
Do you have an action group to cut the chutes? What's the diameter? And what engines does it use?
@@froo5667 Action group yes, diameter 3.75 with 5 extra 1.875 tank arround it, engines: 11 vectors
Well, the land on a drone ship is still in progress though. I've never complete that before. The maneuvering has to be critical to land a 3.75m diameter with 5 extra 1.875m tank around it = 5m tank with 11 vector engine! the outer engine ring have locked gimbal and the rest it just 75% gimbal.
This is like the most powerful, most efficient, most less cost suffocation for carrier if you able to land... in one piece. So that why I add 4 retractable custom landing legs so that act like a shock resistance when touch down. Most landing going to kill all vertical velocity speed until
Full documentation about how my rocket work! First after lift of, it does a pretty normal gravity turn and follow prograde at T-52s until apoapsis. After having remaining 300-600 m/s of DeltaV, it started MECO and using the SpaceX's flip maneuver when separation! The second stage quickly go to orbit or at least near orbit. Then the first stage tries to use 10-100 m/s of DeltaV after to maneuver with 3/11 engines active to the correct landing spot. If it isn't enough DeltaV for maneuvering, the airbrake with tiny Vernor RCS thrusters to make tiny change to the landing location. After that at 2500-5000m, 6 orange parachutes slow down the vehicle after the engine try to kill all horizontal speed! At 500m, landing legs deploy as shock absorptions, cut parachute and safely touchdown at
another way that I prefer using, is SSTO's, as in having the whole booster get to orbit, drop off the payload, and return to kerbin wherever I want, I have an SSTO like that, that can deliver 17.5 tons to LKO, but a derivative of it has extra fuel tanks that are very low cost and drop off early in flight brings it's payload to 55 tons to LKO, so only a very small cost is lost
How do you guys manage to do SSTOs like that
@@Miliradianmore 3000 DV-orbit,more 4000 DV-orbit or return. Use this system
You can use trajectories to get a better estimate of where you are landing with the rotation and atmospheric drag.
It works! Thanks for the video
Me using science mod: HM YES VERY USEFUL
for real this really helped because i was trying to figure out how to use the kerbal engineer landing display thingy
I just use parachutes because I am lazy
i used parachutes because timing the suicide burn is hard
FINALLY NORMAL TUTORIAL
NO DAMN PRE SAVING LIKE OTHER UA-camRS DOING
FYI, parachutes only deploy when safe by default. I activate parachutes before I even enter the atmosphere.
I'm new to this game and im not really sure how to switch the camera to the 1st stage..
If it's right after you separate the two stages, just use one of the bracket keys. If you're switching back after you're far from the first stage, open the map (M) and click on it. If you don't see it in the map then make sure probes are visible with the bar at the top of the screen. Good luck!
@@jebrulio I made a stock new shepard and im trying to land it
@@himshake Cool! Let me know how it goes.
Parachute: baby way
Powered landing: giga chad way
RTLS: *elon musk wants to know your location*
sometimes I don't do RTLS but i do water landings bc it saves fuel
there is an other method that was ment to be used in the Energia II wich implie that the booster become planes to land on a runway
Whta mod did you use the gave you the target to show you were you are going to land
You can use fmrs mod to recover the booster's easily
very kool indeed. Kerbal style
thanks! great video
This could save so mutch money for satilites
powerd landing music ff7?
Dude u make good vids
thanks :)
I play the build your space rocket and in one build in my game it's lost outer the solar system to the many times time wrapping
I did not know kernel engineer had that landing thing I’ve been being dumb for the moths I’ve had it
The red dot doesn't work for me! What do I need to turn on to use the landing prediction!
Is the KER window open like it is in the video? And you're selecting the LAND tab in that window?
@@jebrulio Yeah, now my landing page won't even show up. I clicked on it and it shows a blank page.
@@Skiesaremine That's weird, not sure what's causing that. All I can tell you is that the landing info only shows up when you're in a suborbital trajectory (collision course), also the target doesn't like to show up on the raised ground around the KSC buildings, and also the target is hard to see in vessel view unless you're close to the ground.
If none of those are the cause of your issues then I'd try reinstalling KER and verifying integrity of the game's files if you're on steam. HTH
@@jebrulio fixed it, I was in orbit, and the mod doesn’t realise I am landing
I dunno bout y’all but when I’m doing para shoots I just activate the parachutes and put down landing gear before staging.
1-st launch took 57k
2-nd launch took 60k
3-rd launch took 56k
benefit in 1k for such a difficult launch is not good.
Why you don't used mechjeb?
What mod do you use for the crosshair to show where you land?
Why do your boosters have fins? They make them unstable while returning.
He said to disable yaw, roll, and pitch so it’s NOT unstable
What's the difference between powered landing and rtls?
Power landing means landing anywhere where is land. RTLS means to you return where the rocket was launched and landed there
How do you recover a sunken part?
You mean in the VAB? Move the camera so it's inside the bigger part and you can see the sunken one, then grab it or offset it back out.
I have an idea
What if you make a rocket with a reusable lower stage, but instead of powered landing or parachutes, you add deploying wings so it can land on the runway saving a LOT of money and fuel (patent pending)
ok so i tried it and it didn't work but the idea is there if you wanna try
Using more fuel is a better option than deploying wings on the 1st stage, since those wings can be quite heavy and that weight could go to the payload instead. Having more fuel means more mass, yes, but that mass can be converted to velocity in order to land or boost back. Having something around 8 parachutes can also help with reusable stages, because that means you don't need fuel for landing, and they're much lighter than wings, giving more potential to the payload mass.
(If you wanted to try wings again, make sure the CoM is in-front of the CoL when the booster is empty upon returning to the KSC, which you can simulate in the SPH)
@@rhett008 to whom it may concern, aight
Ironically, the soundtrack that plays at 8:57 is called 'no return' while this is a return to launch site mission
4th way lithobreaking
I have never been able to get to the point where I can unlock the airbrake let alone learn how to use it.
parachutes alone literally nvr work i think it always burns up on reentry idfk but it will just disapear off the map. iv tried air brakes doesnt seem to make a diff. i always just end up having to put a probe on and land it myself.
THIS IS ILON MUSK
What’s the landing tracker mod?
Kerbal Engineer Redux
@@KerbalProductions Oh? I didn’t know that KER did that!
landing marking mod please?
KER impact marker.
Or "trajectory mod"
@@normalhuman9260 my comment is old, but thank you lol
Alternative, orbit with the first stage because you’re on console and it takes too long to switch and pilot vessels on this kind of time frame
It's pretty easy, you have hot keys L1 + left or right
@@_RandomPea yeah, when they’re near each other. When you’ve already made it into orbit with one stage, you’re too far away to do that with the other stage
@@extralargemcfries9891 ah yes you have to do the mad dash to the map view :) or to tracking and risk a blue screen attack :'(
As much as I love it, it's equally the worst game on console for its stability issues imo. But the needs outweigh the bad points, gotta push out from Kerbin and be a multi planetary species !! ;)
6:08 or Trajectory
good soup
or get fmrs so you dont have to worry about doing things fast
The flag💀
Or better just add KSP stagerecovery Mod, thanks me later...