4 ms·
I wonder if anybody has thought about giving the lander a slow rotation? It will help stabilize its landing axis and so likely avoiding a tipping-over. Another
by sinuhe69 3y ago
I wonder if anybody has thought about giving the lander a slow rotation? It will help stabilize its landing axis and so likely avoiding a tipping-over.
Another idea is to let the lander “spring” on the moon surface. Because the gravity is so small, a free fall from 50 m or so will be like nothing. Cutting off the engine early and accept a certain down fall velocity will help stabilize the landing axis as well. With a wider base, the landing can be further stabilized.
- dotnet00 3y agoI think the former is avoided because attitude control thrusters don't tend to be very powerful, so you're adding another variable you need to zero out right as you land, and because sensors can't necessarily be rotated and still provide useful data. Allowing the lander to take a bit of a hit is kind of what IM-1 ended up doing :P but jokes aside, the legs add a bit of tolerance for this, and it has been done on Mars (wrapping rovers in inflatable balloons to absorb the impact), but I guess the logic with the Moon is that you need to do a controlled propulsive descent anyway (and with heavy/large payloads you have no other options), so might as well focus on doing it properly. With Mars there's an atmosphere to help, reducing how controlled the descent needed to be for lighter things.