the.com/landing module
The part of the spacecraft that gets to touch something and then never leaves it.
means A separate, self-contained vehicle section designed to detach from the main spacecraft and set down on a planetary or lunar surface.
from A straightforward 20th-century compound from the Space Age: 'landing,' from Old English 'land' (solid ground), plus 'module,' borrowed from Latin 'modulus' (a small measure), which engineering repurposed to mean a detachable, standardized component. The word followed the hardware — NASA and Soviet engineers needed a plain term for the piece of the craft built to separate and descend, as with the Apollo Lunar Module, and 'landing module' simply named the job it did.
- apollo example
- Eagle landed, ascent stage left descent stage behind forever
- weight obsession
- engineers shaved grams by removing paint and handles
- one way trip
- most landing modules never return to orbit
- legs first
- designed to absorb impact so crew cabin does not