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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Are smaller rockets easier to land? [closed]
Is it easier to land a smaller rocket compared to bigger rockets?? Since they are lighter
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How to approximate the force generated by Falcon 9 grid fins?
I'm interested in approximating the force generated by the grid fins on a Falcon 9 rocket during its descent phase. However, I currently lack specific data and equations for this calculation. Can ...
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How to Model the Aerodynamics of Landing a Falcon 9
I'm currently working on a landing simulation for the Falcon 9. One of my primary tasks is to model both the environment and the rocket. In a previous rough simulation, aerodynamics were mostly ...
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Propellant choices for a Mars landing; tradeoffs between LOX/CH4 and H2O2/RP-1?
What are the tradeoffs between LOX/methane and peroxide/kerosene for a Mars landing mission?
In which ways are each better or worse than the other?
I think the second one would more attractive for ...
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What's the technology behind the floating landing pads?
We often see ships destroyed by storms and waves as tall as dozens of meters, so how does SpaceX keep these floating landing pads stable so it remains level during the landing? What if stormy weather ...
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Why did the May 2016 Falcon 9 launch have a radar glitch?
Looking at a chronicle of booster landing failures, in May 2016 the landing legs appear to have had a radar glitch. This then damaged them. So, my question is why did this happen?
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When chopsticks catch the booster by the grid fins, what is the maximum vertical speed?
How much vertical speed can the grid fins handle before breaking off?
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What caused the falcon booster landing failure during the CRS-16 mission?
On December 5, 2018 the Falcon 9 booster started spinning during the landing burn, and promptly appears to have soft landed on the ocean. While SpaceX stated that the booster could be reused it never ...
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Why did the June 2016 SpaceX launch run out of propellant?
In other words, what caused SpaceX to miscalculate the amount of propellant required to safely land the booster. They had landed successfully on the drone ship in April. So what went wrong here? What ...
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Does a RTLS (Return To Launch Site) landing deposit more soot on the booster than a drone ship landing?
First, it performs an extra burn (the boostback burn). Does this burn make a credible source of extra soot? Second, sometimes it appears to have flown through the second stage's exhaust plume. Does ...
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Whats are the objectives of Artemis I?
Is there any major reason or research that can only can be done by humans or is it just so we can say "we did it again"?
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Can we land on either of Mars' moons?
Is it possible for anything to land safely of Deimos or Phobos? If so, are there any current or past proposals? If not, why? The only missions to Mars' moons I know of are Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 (both ...
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Did the dual booster landing timing change with USSF-44?
Falcon Heavy, on its fourth flight, landed its two core boosters via RTLS at LZ-1 and LZ-2.
Previous F-H launches the two cores have landed at LZ-1/2 within a second or two of each other. So much so, ...
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Why was there only a single Falcon 9 landing on ground-pad in 2021?
According to Wikipedia, there was only one Falcon 9 booster landing on ground-pad in 2021, all other 30 launches at least attempted to land on a drone-ship.
Comparatively, 2020 and (so far) 2022 both ...
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Landing a 3-ton payload on the surface of Mars
I'm working on a university project about the construction of sustainable exploration camps on Mars. I want to land a 3-ton structure that will be used as a basis to build a shelter on the surface of ...
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Could Perseverance survive if Ingenuity failed?
They both landed successfully and ingenuity was deployed. Perseverance drove away, and then Ingenuity failed. Could Perseverance survive on its own?
user47339
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Could Ingenuity survive if Perseverance failed?
For the purposes of this question, we will assume that they both landed successfully. Ingenuity was deployed properly. Then, Perseverance drove away, and then Perserverance say hit a large rock and ...
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Why can't the Falcon 9 first stage touch the water? [duplicate]
SpaceX is spending considerable effort to catch the Falcon 9 first stage onto a giant drone ship. I am aware that salt water ruins almost everything in the long run, but the first stage is a composite ...
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How fast are Ingenuity's knees wearing out?
Each leg of Ingenuity has what I'll call a knee. After just a few flights, on 2021 May 10, NASA wrote:
By plastically deforming and fatiguing as it absorbs energy, this flexure acts much like the ...
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Fuel profile for Apollo 11
I downloaded a dozen of NASA documents about post-flight analysis of Apollo 11 mission, but I cannot find a table or a plot of fuel usage and remains;
Some of the documents which I found:
http://www....
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Why do New Shepard's drogue chutes just "hang there" for ten seconds before deploying the main parachutes? What happens during that time?
The cropped and sharpened screenshots below are from the Blue Origin video Replay: New Shepard Mission NS-19 Webcast after about 02:03:16 (T+08:07) and show a ...
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What are the innovative aspects of New Shepard's "retro-thrust system on the bottom of the capsule"?
Background:
The final velocity of the capsule after the main parachutes are deployed is a balance; it should always be slow enough that the crew is not injured and for reusable capsules and for space ...
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Hard (15mph) landing, no retrorockets fired?
Today’s (12-11-21) Blue Origin New Shepard crew landing looked to be at full 15mph with no evidence of retro rockets firing or slowing of the capsule. Did they fire?
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Is it possible to propulsively land an SRB?
I am wondering if it is possible to propulsively land a solid rocket booster after it detaches from the core booster. I know you could use thrust termination ports to stop thrust, but it would drop ...
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Why does the New Shepard Crew Capsule sometimes deploy 3 parachutes and sometimes deploys only 2 parachutes?
The NS-18 capsule on Oct 13 2021 (with William Shatner aboard) landed with 3 parachutes deployed. In contrast, The NS-12 capsule on Dec 11 2019 landed with 2 parachutes deployed. Strangely in both ...
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Which kinds of survival equipment does Crew Dragon have, in case of an emergency landing?
Soyuz spacecraft has various survival equipment for different cases of emergency landing.
The cases include water landing, desert landing, snow winter landing (crews have special winter suits). They ...
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What flag is flying over the landing site of the Shenzhou 12 crew astronauts returning from Tiangong? What does it say?
NBC News has a short video clip Astronauts Return After 90-day Mission To China's Space Station
A trio of Chinese astronauts touched down in the Gobi Desert after completing China's longest space ...
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Why did the last two NASA rovers land in craters?
Perseverance landed in Jezero crater, Curiosity in Gale crater. Do craters have any specific properties that make them desirable landing sites for rovers?
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How do SpaceX intend to transport their starship/super heavy?
One of the design constraints of the Falcon 9, its skinniness, is to allow it to be transported by truck back to the launch site.
Falcon 9 is 3.7 metres in diameter, whereas Starship and the super ...
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Why were the Space Shuttle Orbiter's landing gear not level?
Looking at an image of the orbiter on the ground, it's obvious the nose landing gear is positioned higher than the other landing gear in the wings, making the nose of the orbiter droop down. As far as ...
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SpaceX live broadcast of booster & boat's eye view of the GPS III Space Vehicle 5 were both uninterrupted; have they make some upgrades to the system?
This answer to Why does the video feed always fail during Falcon 9 landings? shows that SpaceX seems to be "getting better at" or "less shy about" broadcasting continuous live ...
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What independent evidence is there that the Zhurong rover landed on Mars in May 2021? [duplicate]
The China National Space Administration announced, on the 17th of May 2021, that the Tianwen 1 mission landed the Zhurong rover on Mars, with the landing taking place on the 15th of May 2021. What ...
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Other than safety qualifications, was there any technical/engineering reason why propulsive landing was cancelled for the DragonV2?
The Dragon V2 cannot perform a propulsive landing. But the Starship will be making propulsive landings. Why?
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What are the G forces the Dragon 2 crew experience during splashdown? And what is the seat angle for the current configuration of 4 astronauts?
The Dragon 2 has a crew capacity of seven, but, NASA decided to change the specification for the angle of the ship’s seats due to concerns about the g-forces crew members might experience during ...
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Why does the landing trajectory of a blunt body take an S shape in the lower atmosphere?
I coded some Matlab plots of altitude vs time for the re-entry of a point mass (so no aerothermo analysis included). In all the trajectories, there is an S shape closer to the ground. Why? Please ...
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Is it possible to know where the Long March 5B will be landed approximately?
I have read some articles about the uncontrolled space rocket the Long March 5B including some space tracker websites but none of them give any useful information about the rocket landing.
Is it ...
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Did Yuri Gagarin really telephone officials in Moscow to come pick him up?
A farmer and her daughter observed the strange scene of a figure in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet landing near them by parachute. Gagarin later recalled, "When they saw me in my ...
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Why did SN10 rest at a slight incline after landing? [duplicate]
Recently when SpaceX's SN10 landed, before it exploded, it sat still on the ground for a few minutes.
It appears to be resting at a slight incline.
Why is this?
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Why did the communication cable of the Perseverance rover make an angle so great with the other three cables? [closed]
How can you explain the weird position of the communication cable in the image below?
The Perseverance about 20 meters above the surface of Mars. The communication cable, between the rover and its ...
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How many spacecraft bounced like a ball on Mars? How many tried to?
The answer to Why a rover bounces after landing on Mars? is "the Mars Exploration Rovers" of which there were two.
However, they might not be the only spacecraft to use bouncing like a ball ...
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A mysterious flash of light on the surface of Mars while the Perseverance rover was landing. What can it be? [closed]
A mysterious light that lasted a fraction of a second appeared on the surface of Mars while the Perseverance rover was descending. What can its source be?
See: Perseverance Rover’s Descent and ...
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The Mars parachute opened against a black sky on Earth but a blue-magenta sky on Mars during Perseverance landing. How is it possible? [closed]
I have discovered two images (see below) and I do not find an explanation for the different color of the sky as seen from below the parachute just starting to deploy. The video with the test performed ...
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How were Perseverance's cables "cut" after touching down?
In the NASA conference today regarding Perseverance's successful landing on Mars, they talked about how you can see the cable that held the rover in this picture below (I circled the cable).
I'm ...
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What are the rules for callouts during mission landings?
I remember hearing at one point that in the control room at JPL, only the GN&C Lead is allowed to make the announcement for touchdown. It's because they don't want someone prematurely (and ...
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Has there ever been an attempt or serious consideration for spacecraft to land on Mars without an ablative-type heat shield?
My answer to Do exploration spacecraft enter Mars atmosphere against Mars rotation, or on the same direction? lauds the use of ablative heat shields for minimizing radiative heating of a spacecraft by ...
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How tall are the "cliffs of the delta" in the Perseverance rover's landing ellipse?
edit: For all the cliff-doubters in comments, here's a quote of Project Scientist Ken Farley in the new NASA video After the Landing: An Update about NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover after ...
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Why not land SpaceX's Starship like a plane?
I get the reasoning behind designing Starship to land upright. It doesn't require landing gear and the turnaround is expected to be much faster. But I'm beginning to question that logic.
I think the ...
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Are launch windows to Mars avoided if they result in landings during dust storm season?
This comment suggests that orbit before descent to Mars' surface allows a mission to delay the landing if the weather conditions are bad. I think that Tianwen-1 will be the first to put a lander rover ...
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SpaceX Starship: Could they use the Vacuum engines during landing in case of other engine failure?
With the recent test (and RUD due to single engine relight failure) of SN-9, Musk has stated that what they should've done was light all three raptor engines simultaneously then turn one off so as to ...
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How long is Falcon 9 suicide burn?
My question is
How long is a Falcon 9 suicide burn?
I assume the answer might vary between rides, depending on the payload lifted and its destination orbit so the time might not be the same for a ...
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