Small Landers

The Aldrin Cycling Orbit strategy using relatively small landers for various payloads offers several major advantages.

The Phlegra Montes region selected for the Aldrin Settlement site affords a variety of appropriately desirable landing features.

The area contains a combination of terrain features with sufficiently level areas for landing with less than five-degree slopes, relatively low chances of hitting large rocks, a solid enough surface to withstand significant impact loads, a suitable radar-reflective surface to facilitate lander distance monitoring,  and interspersed hilly formations to physically block previously landed surface assets from ballistic ejecta hurled by relatively near-by landers.