Drop Capsule

A Drop capsule is designed to facilitate military landing operations on a hostile world. These come in two primary variants, manned and unmanned.

Manned capsule

The manned capsule carries one Battle Dress-equipped soldier and combat equipment through an atmosphere to a set of pre-programmed ground coordinates, piloted by the flight compter. On the trip down, the capsule executes evasive maneuvers using its thruster package, and deploys decoys as necessary. An ablative heat sheild protects the passenger from the heat of reentry.

After passing through the upper atmosphere, the outer shell splits away, leaving the passenger in a small framework that acts as a sholder harness for a steerable parachute. Aftera a period of ree-fall, the passenger deploys the parachute and flides the remaining distance to the landing zone. This free-fall can be long or short in duration, depending upon the tactical demands for low-altitude parachute opening (ODLO, orbital drop, low opening) of high-altitude opening (ODHO).

Upon landing, the framework that held the parachute forms a missle launcher.

The manned capsule can carry one passenger, and up to 680kg of additional equipment, which usually needs to include the mass of the battle dress.

Unmanned capsule

The unmanned capsules are intended to be used in support of the manned capsules, either for cargo carriage or armed decoys. The capsules are piloted by the same flight computer as the manned capsules, and performs the same or similar maneuvers.

Decoy capsule

These capsules cover the other capsules during descent by providing additional targets for ground fire and additional decoy protection.

"Iron hand" capsules

These capsules provide supression of planetary aerospace defenses (SPAD) "top cover" for the attacking force. Each capsule carries a anti-radiation target memory missile on a parachute. The missle becomes active when reaching the opening point, decending on the parachute, and looking for active scanning targets.

Cargo capsules

These carry additional supplies for a raid, and accompany a raid down, shedding decoys, maneuvering, and landing as normal drones. The capsule contains an inner cannister which decends beneath a parachute. The cannister's cargo capacity is limited by a combination of parachute load-carrying capacity and the nature of the cargo. Cargo capacity for normal equipment is 1236kg, and can be as high as 5070kg for extremely rugged equipment and no reserve chute.

Costs

Manned capsule: TL-10, Cr354,079, 7000kl, 7 tons

Unmanned capsule: TL-10, Cr360,418, 7000kl, 7 tons, plus cost of cargo or armaments.

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