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Spacecraft - Landing Issues (1 Viewer)

phoenix159

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What are some issues associated with landing on the Earth's surface? (and ways to deal with them)
 

panda15

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-Decelerating too quickly
-Energy being converted to heat
-Optimum angle for re-entry
-Ionisation blackout
-Safely touching down onto the earth's surface
 

phoenix159

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-Decelerating too quickly
-Energy being converted to heat
-Optimum angle for re-entry
-Ionisation blackout
-Safely touching down onto the earth's surface
They're all re-entry issues (apart from the last one) - I need landing issues
 

treebrains

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How/why would you distinguish between landing and re-entry? As far as I know, a safe re-entry ensures a safe landing due to controlling those factors. + you can add g-forces for manned missions, obviously. Maybe more specifically you could concentrate on 'decelerating' e.g. using fwd facing rockets, using parachutes closer to the surface to increase drag thus ensuring safe landing.
 

Squar3root

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Straight from my notes:


Sales of my notes available in my signature
 

strawberrye

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Re-entry is a part of the landing-so the above issues contributed by others can well be included in your answer-depending on the marks of the question as well
-However, a key, and probably the most important issue in landing in its final stages is that if the rate of descent is too fast due to the increasing acceleration due to gravity -must consider slowing the rate of deceleration-otherwise the force upon impact will be too high-and the people inside would most likely be severely injured or dead-this is actually done during the re-entry-a part, where rockets can be fired ahead, detaching of modules-to make it lighter
-this main issue dealt with using parachutes-usually several
-the use of specific landing engines also helps-i.e. slowing vehicle to soften landing
-seats in spaceships are usually contour fitted to the astronaut-fibreglass material-ensures a moulded, comfortable fit when module lands on Earth
-potentially the use of glass as an external window-allows the people inside to see and control their descent accordingly to some extent
-seat shock absorbers are used
-some early space rockets actually had 'splash downs'-so basically landed in water and await for retrieval-the water serves as a cushioning body so there is almost no need for a braking rocket to slow the rate of descent
-and American space shuttles had a weird flight path, where they could do sharp S turns and approach at very shallow angles-to achieve rapid deceleration
-another minor, but potential issue to consider is for the pilots to remain in contact with the communication station, because if the impact is too great, it will damage communication equipment which means if the shuttle or rocket lands in a spot far away, i.e. nowhere-then the team can communicate to ask for assistance from retrieval and etc-i.e. the heat in the space shuttle might become significant-remember no matter how well designed and how advanced any sort of heat shielding-no shielding is 100 percent heat proof, so some intense heat will still be transferred to the shuttle... -but this is a very minor issue-unlikely to occur because of the extremely planned nature of missions in general
Hope this helps:)
 

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