LANDER SHOCK-ALLEVIATION TECHNIQUES

Future European space missions have been and are being discussed which involve the landing of scientific payloads on the surfaces of planets or comets in the Solar System, including Mars, Titan, the Moon and sm aller remote comets, For all of these missions - Marsnet, Intermarsnet , Ares, Rosetta, Euromoon, etc, - the landing subsystem is a critical element in that a single-point failure could jeopardise the success of the whole mission, Several studies have therefore been performed to i nvestigate potential landing devices and strategies, including the des cent, impact, and post-impact stability and operation phases, They hav e shown that the acceleration peaks transferred to the lander structur e during impact can be significantly higher than expected, resulting i n major risks to the integrity of the scientific payload, This article reviews work that has been performed in this domain as part of the Ag ency's Technology Research Programme (TRP).