What it does

• Adds a “Sleep” button to the part menu of deployable antennas, whenever the antenna is open.
• Pressing the button causes the antenna to retract… but it will then automatically re-extend a few minutes later, even if you have no control due to lack of communications.
• Default sleep time is 5 minutes. A slider on the antenna’s menu lets you adjust how long it will sleep, in half-minute increments.
• The antenna's menu displays a countdown timer while sleeping.

Why would anyone want this?

If you’re playing KSP with the CommNet difficulty set to “Require communications for control”, this means that you completely lose control of your probe if it doesn’t have a communications link back to a control source such as KSC.

This can make things tricky if you’ve got a ship that needs to do aerobraking or atmospheric reentry somewhere far from Kerbin, if the antenna you use to control it is a deployable one. If you don’t retract it, it will get destroyed by hypersonic winds. If you do retract it, it’s safe… but now your probe is an inert doorstop.

This mod is intended to give you some interesting options for designing your probe. You can put your antenna to sleep before hitting atmosphere, and it will wake up again later on to (hopefully) re-establish control.

How to install

Unzip into your GameData folder, same as any mod. (Includes ModuleManager.)

How to use

• Use the slider on the menu to control how long the antenna will sleep. You can do this in the vehicle editor or in flight.
• While in flight, press the “Sleep” button for an extended antenna to cause it to retract and stay retracted for the specified duration.