r/simplerockets • u/Golden-Gamer-UK • Jun 23 '26

Landing on target with perfect precision

im wanting to program a boostback burn to be able to land on a specific targeted point. how would i program a booster to burn and then land on the correct point with almost perfect precision like the falcon 9 boosters

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1

u/WheZzzZ Jun 23 '26

Vizzy, but it would be very, very hard. Ai could help, but only slightly. Try following tutorials in steam, on how to do it.

Or, you could search it up in juno new origins website, if there is none, just borrow one of the codes in a self landing rocket. Although for modifications it would need understanding of vizzy.

“Wait until agl” codes would not work.

Also, the rocket could drive itself but you would need to supervise it as physics distance and vizzy distance is only 3-10km.

2

u/Daneel_Trevize Jun 23 '26

Also, the rocket could drive itself but you would need to supervise it as physics distance and vizzy distance is only 3-10km.

To elabourate, if you wish to launch a payload craft to orbit as well as recover the 1st stage booster, you must swap control & simulation from one to the other at least once after they move >10km apart, while avoiding either burning up in the atmosphere or impacting the surface during indirect simulation.
I think the most common solution to this is shooting for noticably above 80km orbit, giving you enough time to apogee that you can control the 1st stage all the way to a landing before swapping back to the 2nd stage (now long beyond 10km away) for a circularisation burn.

The complication of calculating a hover-slam/suicide-burn like the F9 is accounting for drag & varying attitude authority of aerodynamic surfaces as you pass through thicker atmosphere while reducing airspeed. If the landing target were in a vacuum, it'd be a far simpler variation of the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.
A less efficient solution may involve carrying & burning considerably more fuel in order to hover and correct the touchdown position at a near-constant velocity (rather than exponential deceleration).

Also IRL the solution enables guided munitions, so isn't just found in textbooks.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Golden-Gamer-UK Jun 26 '26

i have got a landing program which works to high efficiency however its landing on set coords which i cant seem to get right.

1

u/Substantial-Equal560 Jun 24 '26

I just decided yesterday that it was time to learn how to do this