Questions tagged [landing]
Questions regarding the specific part of flights, during which a spacecraft touches down on the solid ground of a celestial body.
306
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Land a cubesat on the moon with ion engine
Say I have a 3U cubesat with a BIT-3 ion thruster, an iodine tank and landing legs. Can it land on the Moon with just an ion thruster?
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0answers
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How heavy is SpaceX's Octagrabber?
SpaceX's drone ships have a vehicle that drives under a booster after landing and then clamps onto it to secure it. Photos of it suggest that it has neither ballast nor any way to clamp onto the ...
4
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1answer
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Can the grid fins affect the rotation of the Falcon 9 descent?
Can the grid fins control the rotation of the Falcon 9 on descent?
How would they have to be positioned to stop the rotation?
If used to rotate the ship, then how they would they have to be positioned ...
2
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0answers
81 views
Could SN8 miss its “bellyflop” if Center of Gravity is too far forward?
Very excited about the upcoming Space X Starship SN8 test flight, but was concerned about the ability to perform the high drag horizontal belly flop with some of the rocket thruster hardware missing ...
21
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5answers
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Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
Sigmund Jähn, the first German in orbit, was injured during a hard landing of the Soyuz 29 capsule on September 3rd, 1978. He got permanent damages of his vertebral column.
Are there other astronauts ...
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3answers
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Did Apollo have braking rockets for soft landing on Earth?
Did Apollo have braking rockets for soft landing on Earth? I have checked Google but cannot find an answer.
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1answer
80 views
How long it takes for the Falcon 9 payload fairings to reach the sea?
The payload fairings of Falcon 9 are released at about 3:15 min
How much time they need to fall and reach the sea?
And what is their maximum speed while reentry?
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vote
1answer
90 views
Falcon 9 landing stages
I know the first stage of Falcon 9 separates at about 2:30 min and it lands at about 8:30 min
But what are the distinct stages of the descent? Like deorbit burns, grid fin deployment, leg deployment ...
2
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0answers
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What is the splash down speed of the manned dragon capsule?
What's the rated speed of the crewed dragon capsule? Do we have any data on the actual measurement for the demo mission?
I'd also appreciate any info on speed for Soyuz, other soviet manned, Apollo, ...
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3answers
141 views
Are Falcon 9 1st stages now always landed at sea?
Does the first stage of Falcon 9 now always land on a drone ships at sea?
Say since 2016 or so.
5
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2answers
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Could Crew Dragon Make an Emergency Landing on Land?
Could a capsule designed for ocean splashdown still land successfully on land in an emergency? The speed of the capsule is slowed to ~15 MPH, which seemingly wouldn't destroy the capsule.
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Is there a risk that re-entering capsules or other components will hit ships or islands?
How precisely can the splash-down point of re-entering capsules (from Mercury onwards) be known in advance? Wasn't there a risk that capsules would hit a ship or an island?
Likewise, Russian and ...
3
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1answer
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What are the main stages of a Crew Dragon descent?
From answers to How much time it takes for the capsules to descend from ISS back down to Earth? I understand it takes 19 hours from the undocking from ISS until it touches the land.
But what are the ...
5
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0answers
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Engine configuration for lander
Which is a more stable lander design:
1.Single central engine.
2.Multiple engines located near the corners
Following is the design for Tianwen-1, the Chinese Mars lander:
And following is the design ...
2
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0answers
99 views
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 ...
5
votes
1answer
90 views
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 ...
10
votes
1answer
482 views
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 ...
3
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0answers
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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/...
11
votes
1answer
219 views
What caused STS-129's low energy condition on the HAC?
I've never heard anyone comment on the trouble STS-129 seemed to experience during the Heading Alignment Cone (HAC) phase. I was hoping someone who was involved with the program might know why it ...
5
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3answers
356 views
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 ...
5
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0answers
119 views
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?
12
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3answers
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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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vote
2answers
159 views
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 ...
3
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0answers
76 views
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, ...
4
votes
1answer
143 views
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 ...
2
votes
1answer
61 views
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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0answers
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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 ...
3
votes
1answer
180 views
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 $\Delta v$ (...
4
votes
1answer
78 views
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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0answers
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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 ...
12
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1answer
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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 ...
6
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2answers
315 views
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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2answers
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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 ...
2
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1answer
119 views
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 ...
5
votes
1answer
546 views
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 ...
7
votes
1answer
190 views
Why was the shuttle landing crosswind limit reduced for longer missions
Answering a question about inclement shuttle landings, OrganicMarble quotes from a summary of landing rules:
The peak crosswind cannot exceed 15 knots, 12 knots at night. If the mission duration is ...
18
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1answer
1k views
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 ...
4
votes
1answer
131 views
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 ...
2
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3answers
568 views
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 ...
7
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4answers
497 views
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 ...
3
votes
0answers
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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 ...
5
votes
1answer
205 views
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 ...
5
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0answers
250 views
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 ...
3
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1answer
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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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2answers
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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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8answers
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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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0answers
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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 ...
21
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2answers
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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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0answers
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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 ...
