Study on the landing mechanism employed in asteroid exploration

Different landing exploration modes of small bodies are discussed. A landing mechanism employed in the asteroid landing exploration is designed. It contains landing foot, landing gear, cardan, buffer mechanism, equipment base, anchor system, and so on. The landing mechanism could fold up to reduce space occupation in the spacecraft. It could fix itself on the landing slope under microgravity via the anchor system. The anchor system´s penetrating and anchoring capability is examined in the frozen earth. The landing performance under microgravity is tested on the air-floating platform. Experiments show that the landing mechanism could perform landing under microgravity and anchoring itself firmly on the landing slope.