Lander facts for kids

Lander can mean a few different things! Most often, it refers to a special type of spacecraft that lands on another planet or moon. It can also be the name of several places around the world.

A lander is a robotic spacecraft designed to travel from Earth and gently land on the surface of another celestial body, like the Moon or Mars. These amazing machines are super important for exploring space because they allow scientists to study distant worlds up close. They carry scientific instruments to collect data, take pictures, and sometimes even pick up samples of rocks or soil.

How Landers Work

Landing a spacecraft on another planet is very tricky! It's often called "seven minutes of terror" for Mars missions because so much can go wrong. A lander usually enters the atmosphere of the planet at very high speeds. To slow down, it might use a heat shield to protect it from the intense heat caused by friction with the atmosphere. Then, parachutes can deploy to slow it down even more. Finally, rockets might fire to provide a soft landing, or sometimes even airbags are used to cushion the impact.

Once safely on the surface, the lander begins its mission. It might have cameras to take panoramic photos of the landscape, sensors to measure weather conditions, or robotic arms to dig into the soil. Some landers are stationary, meaning they stay in one spot, while others are rovers that can move around to explore a wider area.

Famous Space Landers

Many landers have made history by reaching other worlds:

Lunar Landers

The Moon was the first place humans landed spacecraft.

• Luna Program: The Soviet Union sent the first successful landers to the Moon in the 1960s. Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon in 1966, sending back the first pictures from the lunar surface.
• Apollo Missions: The United States' Apollo program famously landed astronauts on the Moon. The Apollo Lunar Module was the part of the spacecraft that carried two astronauts down to the Moon's surface and then launched them back into orbit. The first human landing was Apollo 11 in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Mars Landers

Mars has been a popular target for landers because scientists want to know if life ever existed there.

• Viking Program: In the 1970s, NASA's Viking 1 and Viking 2 were the first successful landers on Mars. They searched for signs of life and studied the Martian atmosphere and soil.
• Mars Pathfinder: This mission in 1997 included the Sojourner rover, which was the first wheeled robot to explore the surface of Mars. It was a huge success and showed how small, mobile robots could be used for exploration.
• Spirit and Opportunity: These twin rovers landed on Mars in 2004. They were designed to last only 90 days but kept exploring for many years, finding evidence that Mars once had liquid water.
• Curiosity Rover: Landing in 2012, Curiosity is a much larger and more advanced rover. It has been exploring Gale Crater, looking for clues about whether Mars could have supported microbial life in the past.
• InSight Lander: This lander, which arrived in 2018, is different because it focuses on studying the inside of Mars. It uses a seismometer to detect "marsquakes" and a heat probe to measure the planet's internal temperature.
• Perseverance Rover: Landing in 2021, Perseverance is the latest and most sophisticated Mars rover. It is collecting rock and soil samples that will eventually be returned to Earth for detailed study. It also carried the Ingenuity helicopter, the first aircraft to fly on another planet.

Places Named Lander

Besides spacecraft, "Lander" is also a name for several places:

United States

• Lander County, Nevada, United States
• Lander Crossing, California, United States
• Lander, Pennsylvania, United States
• Lander, Wyoming, United States

Venezuela

• Lander, Venezuela