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Posts tagged landing

perseverance

perseverance published on No Comments on perseverance

hearing about all the new technology perseverance used for it’s propulsive landing just made me think about how much of a miracle it was we succeeded the first time with curiosity.

but even that might not be as crazy as curiosity’s predecessors spirit and opportunity, which were covered in giant airbags, dropped from 10 metres above the ground, and bounced around on the martian surface for a while until they finally settled in an upright position. and somehow this worked perfectly both times. hey, if it’s stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid.

soyuz

soyuz published on No Comments on soyuz

confusingly, the soyuz is both the name of the rocket and the spacecraft, the latter of which has had 148 crewed missions as of this post (more than the space shuttle’s 135), with the first one being in 1966! if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, the russians say, especially when you’re working on a soviet budget.

there’s something so kerbal about landing in the middle of the desert with a single enormous parachute and tiny landing rockets firing just before touchdown to soften the impact. spare a thought for boris volynov, who rode soyuz 5 in 1969 when its parachute tangled and landing rockets failed, resulting in the spacecraft hitting the ground so hard it broke volynov’s teeth.