A Monte Carlo Analysis of Lunar Lander Dynamics at Touchdown

Since deterministic approaches have difficulties in assessing the capability of the lunar lender due to the complex of initialconditions and lunar surface characteristics, a monte carlo simulation was performed to compute the landing performance of a lunar lender as well as the probability for a successful landing. An analysis method based on three-dimensional solid modelling and multi-body system dynamics analysis was proposed to establish the dynamics model for a lunar lender. Results in statistical form were finally obtained after the landing simulation on a certain lunar surface model for 100 cases, and the reliability of landing stably on such a lunar surface was then calculated. The sensitivity analysis of the performance with respect to the mean value of the initial vertical velocity was also studied. The model and method developed in this paper provide efficient ways for evaluating the lunar landing performance on complicated lunar surfaces.