A soft landing is any type of
aircraft,
rocket or
spacecraft landing that does not result in significant damage to or destruction of the vehicle or its payload, as opposed to a
hard landing. The average vertical speed in a soft landing should be about 2 meters (6.6 ft) per second or less.[1]
Vertical rocket power using
retrorockets, often referred to as
VTVL (vertical landing referred to as
VTOL, is usually for aircraft landing in a level attitude, rather than rockets) — first achieved on a suborbital trajectory by
Bell Rocket Belt and on an orbital trajectory by the
Surveyor 1.
Horizontal landing, most aircraft and some spacecraft, such as the
Space Shuttle, land this way accompanied with a parachute.