Braking and attitude control of lunar lander in active descent stage

China officially launched the lunar exploration project, named "Chang'e Project, " in 2004. Then, in 2013, Chang'e-3 completed the soft landing on the lunar surface, starting a series of studies on the soft landing of spacecraft. This study aims to optimize the dynamic flight guidance and attitude control of the lunar landing module represented by Chang'e-3 in the soft landing stage. After analyzing the attitude control requirements of the soft landing stage of the lunar landing module, this study designs the lunar soft landing process under a variable structure sliding mode (VSSM) control. The study also analyzes the influence of the pulse width modulator (PWM) on the soft landing process. The simulation model of the lunar soft landing guidance and control system is established by MATLAB/Simulink, and the traditional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control mode is compared with the interference condition. Results show that VSSM + PWM is superior to PID in robustness and accuracy and has a theoretical reference value for future lunar landing exploration and even Mars landing exploration.