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The first mars lander was in a tetraheadron in an airbag. There was no way for it to land in the wrong orientation because the tetraheadron always unfolded in t
by demondemidi 3y ago
The first mars lander was in a tetraheadron in an airbag. There was no way for it to land in the wrong orientation because the tetraheadron always unfolded in the correct orientation. And that was almost 30 years ago.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoYes - that was a great design. I've seen some people suggest that it wouldn't work on the moon due to lack of atmosphere and less gravity, but not obvious why that would prevent it. Of course it's a more complex design in a way given that you deploy this airbag at low altitude - something else to go wrong. It's interesting though that NASA has used that and the even more complex air-crane technique on Mars both successful first attempt. Even though they seem complex I'd assume NASA determined they were the least-complex approaches that had a high likelihood of success. Maybe the economics of doing this on the moon, and with a cheaper lander, are different - better to have a simpler system with higher chance of failure, and redo the mission if it fails ?
- demondemidi 3y agoI didn’t realize the part about the atmosphere. That’s interesting!