Soft landing (rocketry)

Space Shuttle orbiter during soft landing

A soft landing is any type of aircraft, rocket or spacecraft-lander landing that does not result in damage to/the destruction of the vehicle or anything on board. (Contradictory to Hard landing.)

This can be achieved by

• parachute —often this is into water.
• vertical rocket powered landing, often referred to as VTVL (vertical landing referred to as VTOL, is usually for aircraft landing in a "level" attitude, rather than rockets — first achieved with an orbital rocket vehicle stage on December 22, 2015) by SpaceX.
• horizontal landing (usually an unpowered glide) such as with the Space Shuttle; The HL part of VTHL.
• being caught, as attempted with Genesis (spacecraft) and followed by some other form of landing.

Soft landing can be contrasted with the term hard landing.

References