Questions tagged [landing]
Questions regarding the specific part of flights, during which a spacecraft touches down on the solid ground of a celestial body.
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What are the challenges for delivering bulk asteroid commodities to Earth? [closed]
I think nickel-iron is an extraordinary and perhaps unique resource that is (by Earth market standards) valuable even as a raw and unprocessed commodity - perhaps several thousand US$ per ton for high ...
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Do the ASDS barges have mission specific equipment?
End of June 2020, there was a planned Starlink (L9) mission on Jun 26, and OCISLY (Of Course I Still Love You, name of the vessel, really! Not making that up!) went out catch the stage.
Then a few ...
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How close to a building has a Soyuz landed?
Soyuz capsules are designed to land onto land. To avoid the small chance of harming people or property, they are usually targeted to land in remote parts of Kazakhstan. However, some landings aren't ...
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Space-X Falcon-9 and Falcon Heavy fuel consumed for landing
The question is, how much fuel is used by each of above rockets for landing (in % of whole fuel of the rocket) as a function of three following components - payload, orbit and descend trajectory (land/...
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How does SpaceX Falcon 9 keep balance while it is near to the landing site?
As we know, flight vehicles can't keep balance easily if they cannot propel enough air through their blades or wings. We can also see the Falcon 9 at a steeper angle a while before touching down on ...
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Is it legal to sail near a Falcon-9 landing at sea?
Is it legal to pilot a sailboat near any of the autonomous spaceport drone ships?
For example, is it possible to stay near "Of Course I Still Love You" during the first stage landing?
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Is Crew Dragon flawed? Is it just an improvisation with no future?
I know that, Crew Dragon was initially designed for vertical landing on solid surfaces, as a reusable spacecraft, and then some changes were made to make it capable of landing in water using ...
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Why are we still giving medical support to astronauts after they land? Or any support for that matter?
Besides moving the astronauts around, what are the medical team needed for? I assume they are already wearing some type of monitors for heart/breathing/etc. A call on the radio can confirm if they are ...
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Atmospheric entry of asteroid mining products
This is a more general question than How to get processed asteroid metals back to Earth in a safe manner
That question was actually a quick check to see if a particular idea was plausible. Instead, ...
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What specific event determined the “end” of a shuttle mission?
We've had several questions about when a mission officially "begins". But what about when a mission officially "ends"?
The Apollo Flight Journal stops the mission clock at splashdown. What was the ...
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1answer
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At what altitude(s) were the Viking BLDT rockets fired?
I'm trying to understand the details of the 1972 Viking BLDT test missions (in earth's atmosphere). I found this diagram in a book and the general description that the (four) BLDT (balloon drop) tests ...
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What is the maximum thrust a pressure-fed methalox engine can produce?
SpaceX revealed on 4/30/2020 a new version of Starship designed to land humans on the Moon. Auxiliary engines are mounted high on the body for the last part of the descent, apparently to eliminate the ...
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Delta-v for landing on the moon
I'm doing a few calculations to understand how to go from the Earth to the Moon. I used an elliptical (Hohmann Transfer) orbit to go from LEO to a circular Moon's orbit performing two $\Delta v$ (...
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What was the radius of Insight's disruption of Martian regolith?
A NASA animation depicts the Martian regolith being disturbed by the retrorockets of the Insight spacecraft while landing.
Did NASA estimate the radius of the disruption, or was there any indication ...
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Why have JPL martian rovers stopped using airbags and started using skycranes? [duplicate]
Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers used airbags to kill their terminal velocity. The Curiosity and Mars 2020 rovers have or will use skycranes. Why have JPL started using propulsive terminal ...
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How did the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit & Opportunity) land upright? [duplicate]
In every animation depicting the landing of the MERs, the tetrahedral airbag compartment is bouncing & tumbling after surface contact. How did Spirit & Oppy ensure they would come to rest ...
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Landing legs problem with Falcon 9 Block 5 / Starlink 3 mission
Is this a late landing burn problem? it seems that the engine touch the OCISLY ground as the landing legs flex.
Landing occurs at about T+0:08:20
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What is the “floating dust” seen in the Starliner test landing colour footage?
The first Starliner landing was in the very early morning. The live coverage was only able to show infrared pictures of the descent, however NASA's documentation of the event includes a colour video ...
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Controlling suicide burn landing location in a python simulation?
I recently asked a question in stackoverflow about Simulation of suicide burn in openai-gym's LunarLander. Sadly most of my assumptions about suicide burn implementaion were wrong but the answer given ...
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How close to Guam did China's recent Long March 5's first stage fall?
Jonathan McDowell'sTweet and Tweet say
Two objects cataloged from the CZ-5 launch: 180 x 67690 km x 19.4 deg, and 203 x 73395 km x 19.4 deg. One is the SJ-20 comms satellite and the other is the ...
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Did any of the Space Shuttles land through rain or rainclouds?
My web research resulted in figuring out that launching Space Shuttles in rain, apart from lightning, wind and turbulence related problems, wasn't permitted due to:
brittleness of the heat shield ...
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Single Engine versus Multiple Engines for Moon Landing
Does it really make any huge difference in the amount of lunar dust disturbed or raised during a Moon landing while using a single-engine compared to using multiple engines?
I do not think there ...
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Why are these Soyuz Astronauts/Cosmonauts wearing sun glasses and a blanket after landing?
Why are these Soyuz Astronauts/Cosmonauts wearing sunglasses? Is there any scientific reason for this? (Please don't say they want to look cool) I have not seen Shuttle Astronauts wearing sunglasses ...
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Why don't we use sound suppression system when rocket lands propulsively?
We know that the sound suppression system (water deluge system) is used to protect the launch vehicle from the acoustic energy produced by the engines. For most of the expendable launch vehicles, it ...
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Can we use magnetic devices to anchor to asteroids?
One of the challenges about missions to asteroids is staying attached to them when you land.
Many asteroids are described as nickel/iron, and we know that both nickel and iron have magnetic ...
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What kept Vostok/Voskhod from tipping or rolling upon landing?
Considering that the reentry capsule of Vostok and Voskhod were spherical, what kept them from rolling or tipping after landing?
Soyuz has a flatter bottom, so I would expect this to be less of an ...
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Why will Russia start arming cosmonauts again?
The Phys.org article Russia to give cosmonauts guns to fend off animals on landing says:
Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but Roscosmos agency head Dmitry Rogozin said it was time ...
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What measures were taken to clear wildlife from the Shuttle Landing Facility?
What was done to prevent or remove wildlife such as alligators and birds from the runway at Kennedy Space Center, so the Shuttle could land safely?
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Why a rover bumps after landing on Mars?
Sometime ago I was watching a video which showed that when a rover lands on mars surface it will keep bumping on mars surface like a ball until it gets rid of stored energy and then it becomes static.
...
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Is there any way to land a rover on the Moon without using any thrusters?
Is there any way to land a rover on the moon without using any thruster, with the help of Thermocol, Cotton, Bubble wrap or any other packaging material, like we can receive from online shop?
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Delta-v cost of longitudinal plane change correction?
In a recent question, the slow drift of a landing site on a rotating body relative to an orbiter came up.
This would sometimes require a plane change correction when one desires to recover the ...
asked Sep 6 '19 at 8:38
SE - stop firing the good guys
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Why were contact sensors put on three of the Lunar Module's four legs? Did they ever bend and stick out sideways?
In the video Brian Eno on Apollo starting at 08:37 there is Apollo-era movie footage of a lunar module taken from the command module as it prepares for descent ...
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How far off did Apollo 11 land?
Armstrong wasn't able to land exactly in the designated landing location, as far as I know it was too rocky. So he had to fly a bit farther to find a suitable spot. But how much farther from the ...
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How do you calculate burns needed to land?
Assume I was landing a rocket and wanted to do calculations on how to correctly land. How do you determine at what time you fire the engine and at what power to successfully land on a predetermined ...
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How did the Vostok ejection seat safely eject an astronaut from a sealed space capsule?
Wikipedia's Yuri Gagarin says:
At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute.
and the section Vostok_programme; Vostok 3KA ...
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How exactly were solid-fuel rockets added to the parachute lines of the Voskhod capsule?
This answer notes that Voskhod:
...added a small solid-fuel rocket to the parachute lines. It fired as the descent module neared touchdown, providing a softer landing.
How exactly did they safely ...
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When did soviet capsules begin using retropropulsion immediately before landing?
Wikipedia's Yuri Gagarin says:
At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute.
and the section Vostok_programme; Vostok 3KA ...
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How do flags behave on the Moon?
I have seen many theories and question/answers on this site touching upon this subject but no focused question. So I would like to ask this as a two part question.
Is what we saw in the Lunar ...
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SpaxeX employees on the droneship when the booster lands?
SpaceX is doing a great job in recovering the boosters from its rockets.
The Falcon Heavy has 3 boosters. 2 of which land at Cape Canaveral and 1 on a drone ship somewhere in the ocean.
Are there ...
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Could Falcon 9 take off without launchpad
As far as I'm currently aware, the Falcon 9 block 5 does not have the capability to retract it's landing legs once they're deployed, however:
If F9 landing legs had the ability to retract themselves (...
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Could a Rotary Rocket charge a super capacitor while descending on Mars?
Could a rotary rocket entering the atmosphere collect enough energy in a super capacitor through the rotors (along with auto rotation) while descending to have a controlled landing in the last few ...
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Why did the Falcon Heavy center core fall off the ASDS OCISLY barge?
On the second flight of the Falcon Heavy, they successfully landed the side cores at LZ-1 and LZ-2, and the center core downrange on the ASDS Of Course I Still Love You.
Reports have come in that ...
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What is the physics behind a rocket landing on a celestial body with an atmosphere?
I would like to know the different physics concept I would need to land a rocket being in orbit. I know the timing is important to leave it, how can one find this out ? Then how to compute the ...
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Falcon 9 Landing Speed
I wanted to know what the fastest speed is that a Falcon 9 can land at and thus the max force the landing legs can withstand.
I assumed the mass when landed is 26,000 kg (I once heard that somewhere). ...
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How does New Shepard Crew Capsule sense proximity to trigger retropropulsion just before impact?
How does the New Shepard Crew Capsule sense proximity to the ground in order to trigger retropropulsion just before impact?
GIFs from Blue Origin NS-10: New Shepard launch & landing, 23 January ...
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Why does this boat have a landing pad? (SpaceX's GO Searcher) Any plans for propulsive capsule landings?
The BBC News article SpaceX Dragon demo capsule set to return to Earth talks about the return of the first Crew Dragon capsule to Earth:
Four parachutes should bring it into soft contact with water ...
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Is there a practical maximum size for a space capsule returning to Earth?
Assuming I need to get a large cargo or a lot of people safely to Earth's surface in one go in a single-use capsule of the Apollo CM / Soyuz descent type but larger, and assuming that the capsule is ...
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Where is the debris in the Hayabusa 2 touchdown video coming from?
In the video of the touchdown of Hayabusa 2 (https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/06/hayabusa2-probe-ryugu-touchdown-video/) no debris is visible until touchdown. After that, there is a lot of it (though ...
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Can the SpaceX Dragon 2 crew vehicle still use the draco and super draco thrusters to slow down when landing?
In an emergency, is it possible to use the draco and super draco thrusters alone to slow down the vehicle after re-entry? Right from the point parachutes are supposed to be released right upto touch ...
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What systems were used onboard Buran to determine its position during reentry and landing?
Since Buran has managed to return without crew on board, I assume computers had to know its position relatively accurately as it approached the runway for landing.
How was this achieved?
