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Like Soyuz? Interesting, why would they want that capability? All Russian space vehicles land on land because they don’t have easy access to warm waters and K
by coolspot 2y ago
Like Soyuz?
Interesting, why would they want that capability?
All Russian space vehicles land on land because they don’t have easy access to warm waters and Kazakhstan steppe is big and empty.
But why boeing/nasa would want that?
- dotnet00 2y agoTradeoffs on the kind of refurbishment needed compared to a splashdown, since Starliner is supposed to be reusable. Plus stuff like faster extraction of time-sensitive payloads and overall cheaper capsule processing operations since you don't need specially fitted boats chasing after the capsule. Dragon was also initially intending to land on solid ground, but dropped the idea when NASA asked for additional tests to prove that popping landing legs out of the heat shield would be safe. SpaceX had intended such landings in large part because of the plans for Red Dragon, but since by then they had started to shift towards Starship, they deemed it easier to just splashdown and deal with the extra refurbishment than try to prove out a technology they no longer felt the need for.
- GMoromisato 2y agoLanding in water is bad for equipment--the salt water tends to corrode, so refurbishing the capsule after a water landing is a bit harder.
- simplicio 2y agoThink the main reason is that sea-recoveries are expensive compared to ones on land. I imagine there's at least some extra risk to a sea recovery as well (one of the Mercury capsules sank during recovery, though happily not with its astronaut inside).