A planetary landing device inspired by gliding cockroaches

Demands for planetary landing Unmanned exploratory missions to e.g. Mars involve a landing phase, where the spacecraft descends vertically to the planetary surface. In order to minimize the impact during landing a breaking system of parachutes and airbags is employed. This system is uncontrolled and hence not able to adapt to unforeseeable situations. Indeed, landing spacecraft may easily hit a stone, slide down crater rims or be dragged along by strong winds on the planetary surface. In all these events, the costly mission is highly endangered as failures in landing systems in the near past have proven. Due to the communication round-trip delay time between the spacecraft and ground control, external supervision of the descent is impossible. As a consequence, a landing device is desired that can autonomously stabilize the descent and visually guide the spacecraft to a safe landing place. Auto-piloting systems as known from modern aircrafts are capable of landing safely. However, such systems cannot be employed for planetary landing for several obvious reasons such as the lack of predefined and properly equipped runways. Besides, a system with rigid wings and complex control architecture would require a too large fraction of the highly restricted and costly payload during launch.