Landing equipment of the new generation manned transportation spacecraft

The paper provides an overview of spacecraft landing equipment, reviews the types of landing, criteria for selecting types of landing, equipment assuring crew safety during landing, purpose and configuration of landing equipment and requirements for it. It reviews advantages and disadvantages of landing equipment of those RSC Energia vehicles that were operated in the past, those that are operated at present, and those that are currently under development, as well as of the spacecraft that are being developed abroad. The paper presents configurations of landing equipment of the new-generation manned transportation spacecraft for implementation of rocket landing and rocket- assisted parachute landing system options, that were studied at RSC Energia during preliminary and detailed design phases, lists their advantages and drawbacks, selection criteria. The paper analyzes redistribution of functions between components of the landing system, the purpose and key characteristics of the components such as the parachute system, landing solid rocket system, landing device and shock-absorbing crew seats. The paper provides a comparative analysis of landing systems by mass criterion of the RSC Energia spacecraft that are under design and those that are currently in operation.