lander
Craft that descends
A lander is a spacecraft designed to touch down on a celestial body rather than orbit it: The lander descended to the lunar surface.
More generally, a lander is someone or something that lands—a fish that's been landed, a plane touching down, a gymnast sticking the dismount. (Capitalized Lander is a city in Wyoming.)
Vehicle for outer space
- moduleIndependent functional component
- capsuleEnclosed dose container
- descentDownward slope or lineage
- probeThorough examination or tool
touchdown · retrofire · legs · footpad · thrusters · telemetry · parachute · payload
Sun deity, moonshot namesake
Seize or snag
Seventeenth-century Dutch astronomer
Purpose-driven task
- discoveryAct of finding something
- geologyStudy of Earth's composition
- surveySystematic data collection
- dataFacts for analysis
science · analysis · surface · expedition · frontier · research · experiment
Medieval Nordic raider
- CuriosityMars surface laboratory
- PhoenixArizona's capital city
- martianNative of fourth planet
- seismometerDetects ground vibrations
Automaton design field
- wheelsCircular rotation devices
- mobilityCapacity for movement
- deploymentOrganized distribution of resources
- navigationDetermining position and course
autonomy · battery · instruments · sampling · drill · terrain · communication · egress
spacecraft
Vehicle for outer space
- moduleIndependent functional component
- capsuleEnclosed dose container
- descentDownward slope or lineage
probe · touchdown · retrofire · legs · footpad · thrusters · telemetry · parachute · payload
Apollo
Sun deity, moonshot namesake
catch
Seize or snag
Huygens
Seventeenth-century Dutch astronomer
- PhilaeAncient Egyptian sacred isle
- HayabusaAsteroid-sampling space probe
- RosettaTrilingual Egyptian artifact
comet · asteroid · Titan · interplanetary
mission
Purpose-driven task
- discoveryAct of finding something
- geologyStudy of Earth's composition
- surveySystematic data collection
data · science · analysis · surface · expedition · frontier · research · experiment
Viking
Medieval Nordic raider
robotics
Automaton design field
- wheelsCircular rotation devices
- mobilityCapacity for movement
- deploymentOrganized distribution of resources
navigation · autonomy · battery · instruments · sampling · drill · terrain · communication · egress · ramp
- aerospaceairplane, helicopter, rocket, rockets, spacecraft
- NASAApollo, Artemis, astronauts, Cape Canaveral, Hubble
- space explorationrockets, Saturn V, satellites, mission, Falcon Heavy
- spacecraftspacecraft, starships, spaceship, Voyager 1, rocket ships
- spaceflightlaunch, astronaut, spacecraft, liftoff, orbit
- Fictional Vehiclesstarship, mothership, Battlestar Galactica, Millennium Falcon, Borg cube
landerorbiter
Body circling another
satellite · space station · rover · launch vehicle · probe
- dry landEarth above water
- land mineBuried pressure-activated explosive
- on landUpon solid ground
- lay of the landGeneral state of affairs
- land of promiseDestined place of abundance
- crash landingUncontrolled emergency descent conclusion
land, landing, lands, landed, landings, landless, highlander, landing gear, lowlander