Simulation of a Spacecraft Landing Using a Landing Device with Crash Legs

Landing gear constitutes a part of the landing systems and aids used in modern reusable transportation space systems as special units that dissipate residual kinetic energy of a spacecraft when it interacts with the landing surface. The landing gear as it is currently designed (with several lever-rod legs), has a large mass and excessive rigidity. It decreases the efficiency of transportation operations of the spacecraft and increases loads that are transferred to the mounting fixtures. To overcome these shortcomings, it is possible to use thin-walled crash boxes as disposable structural elements of crash legs that simultaneously perform load-bearing and energy-absorbing functions. The article describes spacecraft landing on landing gear consisting of four crash legs supported by beam struts. The finite element method in MSC Nastran is used to simulate spacecraft landing on hard soil with various combinations of vertical and horizontal initial velocities for the main cases of spacecraft attitude relative to the landing surface. The results obtained show that the landing gear provides conditions for safe landing by limiting the level of peak loads acting on the spacecraft as the 35% reduction in mass of the landing crash legs is achieved. The characteristic features of the crash leg dynamic deformation process open ways for optimizing the design and further reducing the landing gear weight.

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