Editing Splashdown (section)

{{short description|Method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water}}
{{For-multi|aircraft landing on water|Water landing|other uses|Splashdown (disambiguation)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2024}}
[[File:Apollo 15 splashdown.jpg|thumb|[[Apollo 15]] makes contact with the Pacific Ocean.]]
[[Image:Splashdown.png|thumb|Locations of [[Atlantic Ocean]] splashdowns of American spacecraft prior to the 21st century]]
[[Image:Splashdown 2.png|thumb|Locations of [[Pacific Ocean]] splashdowns of American spacecraft]]

'''Splashdown''' is the method of landing a [[spacecraft]] or [[launch vehicle]] in a body of water, usually by [[parachute]]. This has been the primary recovery method of American capsules including NASA’s [[Project Mercury|Mercury]], [[Project Gemini|Gemini]], [[Apollo program|Apollo]] and [[Orion (spacecraft)|Orion]] along with the private [[SpaceX Dragon]]. It is also possible for the [[Boeing Starliner]], Russian [[Soyuz spacecraft|Soyuz]], and the Chinese [[Shenzhou (spacecraft)|Shenzhou]] crewed capsules to land in water in case of contingency. [[NASA]] recovered the [[Space Shuttle]] [[Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster|solid rocket boosters]] (SRBs) via splashdown, as is done for [[Rocket Lab|Rocket Lab's]] [[Electron (rocket)|Electron]] first stage.

As the name suggests, the vehicle [[parachute]]s into an [[ocean]] or other large body of water. Due to its low density and viscosity, water cushions the spacecraft enough that there is no need for a [[braking rocket]] to slow the final descent as is the case with Russian and Chinese crewed space capsules or [[Airbag#Spacecraft airbag landing systems|airbags]] as is the case with the [[Boeing Starliner|Starliner]].<ref name="Prof Tous">{{cite web |last1=Tous |first1=Marcos |title=The science behind splashdown—aerospace engineer explains how NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back |date = 28 June 2024|url=https://theconversation.com/the-science-behind-splashdown-an-aerospace-engineer-explains-how-nasa-and-spacex-get-spacecraft-safely-back-on-earth-232786 |website=The Conversation |access-date=27 November 2024}}</ref>

The American practice came in part because American launch sites are on the coastline and launch primarily over water.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/sites.html |title=Launch Services Program Launch Sites |publisher=NASA |date=2009-05-14 |access-date=2020-08-07}}</ref> Russian launch sites such as [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]] are far inland, and most early launch aborts would descend on land.