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A MATHEMATICAL PROCEDURE FOR PREDICTING THE TOUCHDOWN DYNAMICS OF A SOFT-LANDING VEHICLE
Harold Doiron, G. A. Zupp
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Abstract
A mathematical procedure for predicting the touchdown dynamics of a soft-landing vehicle is presented. The vehicle is idealized as a pseudorigid structure to which a landing gear system is attached. The landing gear system is made up of telescoping struts which house shock-absorbing mechanisms and connect the vehicle structure with footpads that contact the landing surface. The forces acting on the idealized vehicle during landing are from the vehicle landing gear system, the reaction control system, the descent-stage rocket engine thrust, rocket-engine-nozzle-crushing loads, and grav- ity. Forces acting on footpads are due to forces from the landing gear struts and from the landing surface. gear system are approximated by assuming that the structure deforms linearly with the applied load. 1/6-scale lunar module model. The elastic properties of the vehicle structure and of the landing Correlation between analytical and experimental data is presented for a Conclusions from these data are presented.
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