PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF REUSABLE LUNAR LANDER LANDING SYSTEM

Abstract

This thesis presents the methodology to design the landing system for the Reusable Lunar Resupply Vehicle (RLRV) for soft landing on the Moon surface. The landing gear preliminary design is based on the requirements of the stability distance and ground clearance. Two-dimensional cantilever design lander model in the MATLAB/Simulink environment is used to analyse the landing dynamics of the lunar lander with honeycomb crushable absorber and metal bellow absorber to determine the preliminary design parameters. Two main case simulations are run with different touchdown conditions. Case simulation 1 analyses normal operations of the RLRV. Case simulation 2 analyses initial landing of the RLRV. Results show that the honeycomb absorber has a more effective energy absorption than the metal bellow absorber. The landing system with honeycomb absorber has a smaller sizing as well. However, reusability of the honeycomb absorber is not possible. The structural mass of the landing system is estimated based on the required design parameters and design requirements from the landing analysis. Aluminum alloy and carbon fiber reinforced plastic are both assessed. Carbon fiber reinforced plastic has much weight saving compared to aluminum alloy due to its high strengthtoweight ratio. Metal bellow absorber required more mass than the honeycomb absorber because of the stainless steel metal bellows required for the stroke of the shock absorber.