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[i]Now that's a crater. Note the steep sides of the hole due to the cohesion of the soil. Now imagine a 40 ton lander and how big its hole will be. That hole will likely collapse (especially as the hole dries out over the coming weeks) sapping soil away from the footpads. This soil sapping from the footpads may induce tilting of the lander. That's one of the three risks of landing very large landers on Mars. The second is ejecta hitting the lander as the rocket exhaust comes back up from the hole before engine cutoff. Third: hitting surrounding hardware. By the way, ongoing research by Masten Space is working to solve the physics of rockets digging craters. UCF supports that project with drop tower experiments and analysis. We are learning how to manage the cratering for Moon and Mars landings and launches.[/i]
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