How to survive atmospheric entry?

A rover mission burning up into the atmosphere because atmospheric entry has gone wrong.

These are tips for how to survive atmospheric entry in Spaceflight Simulator.

Introduction

A rocket reentering the atmosphere.

Atmospheric entry is one of the most important and challenging events of a mission and if something wrong happens, the mission will be failed. And if done correctly the mission will be a success. These are tips for how to survive atmospheric entry.

Here are the tips.

1. Place a heat shield in your rocket.

The most efficient way to survive atmospheric entry is put a heat shield on a rocket. This is really important. If you don't put a heat shield on your rocket, it will burn up during the process. So, when returning to Earth, make sure the capsule has a heat shield. This also applies to rover and lander missions to Mars/Venus, but with a protective shell/case that protects it from the harsh environments.

2. You must face the heat shield towards the direction of travel.

During atmospheric entry, the rocket is experiencing so much heat that its heat shield is faced toward the direction of travel. Why? It is for the rocket to not overheat and burn up too quickly. This is really important; if you don't follow this tip, you won't survive atmospheric entry at all.

3. If one heat shield is not enough, put more heat shields in it.

If it seems that one heat shield is not enough, put another heat shield on it. This will provide some extra protection against the heats of reentry. This can also be applied to fast atmospheric entry, to keep the rocket to be intact at landing.

4. If you cannot afford a heat shield, slow down before you enter the atmosphere.

If you can't afford a heat shield, slow down the velocity; I mean, very significantly. A very small change in the velocity is not enough.

Let me give you some facts here: When you enter the atmosphere, there is a heating effect. It is caused by friction by the air particles. They heat up into plasma particles. Another cause is air compression. If a rocket is slower, and if the atmosphere is thicker, then the reentry effects are much less intense. That's because there is less friction and air compression during slow atmospheric entry. So when you plan to recover a first stage or send a rover/lander mission to Venus, you should slow down the rocket to slow speeds to survive atmospheric entry.

5. Add more parts to your rocket.

This seems to be really redundant but it actually helps. Adding more layers of heat shields/any other part will certainly have more resistance to the heats of reentry. The downside is it will add more mass in your rocket.

A heat shield or a fairing is enough to survive atmospheric entry.

6. Use heat-resistant parts.

Heat-resistant parts can usually survive atmospheric entry. An example is a heat shield or a fairing. Those parts can survive Max Q or atmospheric entry.

7. Use the No Heat Damage cheat.

Using this cheat will disable a rocket's burning up during reentry. This is useful for very fast atmospheric entry, when you are returning from a far away celestial body. Take Mercury or Jupiter as examples. The cheat is even useful when you're going to reenter the atmosphere of any celestial body without a heat shield.

Warning: When reentering at fast speeds, you could see the temperature rise to ridiculous temperatures, even as hot as the Sun's surface, or far more than that. Note also that the rocket will turn near or at completely black.

8. If you want to disable atmospheric entry altogether, use the No Atmospheric Drag cheat.

If you don't want to have entry effects turn on the No Atmospheric Drag cheat. That will make the game really unrealistic, especially without the heating and reentry effects, and also Max Q. But it can help because you don't want for your rockets to burn up at reentry. So, if you don't want your rockets to face the heats of reentry, turn on the No Atmospheric Drag cheat.

Bottom line

Learn how to survive atmospheric entry by the tips above.