Your Mission.
Landing Secured.
Landing Stabilization System (LS2)
Built from First Principles.
We reduce touchdown
to fundamentals:
then rebuild without
legacy assumptions.
The result: assured
upright landings
for your lander
and payload.
No legacy legs.
No terrain limits.
This is LS2.
Mission Failure is Not an Option.
Unlocking Upright Stability on Any Terrain.
Maximum Protection.
Minimal Complexity.
LS2 is the definition of mission protection:
maximum assurance, minimal complexity.
At CrescentTide Technologies, we start with the fundamentals;
by boiling the problem down to basic laws, then reasoning up from there without 70 years of rigid-leg assumptions, we created LS2:
a passive, patent-pending cage that delivers assured upright stability. Every. Single. Time.
Our philosophy is clear: LS2 reframes landing from a high-risk
final phase into a deterministic, physics-validated success;
we remove complexity so you can focus on what you do best.
Energy Absorbing Vertex
Moving Lander Contact Points
Introducing LS2:
The Active Solution in a Passive System
LS2 is a patent-pending, polyhedral stabilization system that delivers assured impact mitigation and self-righting for your lander — without adding active complexity or requiring any redesign.
High-strength carbon-fiber struts interconnect at layered energy-absorbing vertices, achieving 70-85% peak load reduction by distributing shock into manageable kinetic energy.
Key Features:
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Pure Passive Stabilization: 360° gimbal operated with zero power, sensors, or software
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Omnidirectional Mitigation: Protects against tip-over on any contact angle
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Scalable Architecture: Supports landers up to 10,000 kg on slopes up to 45°
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Seamless Integration: Your propulsion, avionics, and payloads remain unchanged
Why LS2 Succeeds:
Rooted in First-Principles Fundamentals:
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Multi-point geometry for force distribution and omnidirectional contact
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Low-gravity pendulum effect drives passive self-righting
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Equilateral triangle face provides inherent stability once settled
FRAME
Polyhedral Structure
The Structural Integrity.
Engineered as an icosahedron to grant unrestricted landing attitude. The shape provides omnidirectional assurance for any touchdown angle.
VERTICES
Energy Dampers
The Impact
Mitigator.
Each vertex received the full load and dissipates up to 3.05 kJ, reducing 70-85% of peak shock to safeguard your lander and sensitive payloads.
GIMBAL
Passive Stabilizer
The Self-Righting System.
360° mechanism requires zero power, sensors, or software. Frangible links shear on impact, freeing the gimbal for immediate, adaptive upright stability.
CAMERAS
Integrated Navigation
The Critical
View.
Optional passive cameras integrated within up to 10 vertices provide continuous visual telemetry across the entire mission and deliver real-time insight.
LS2 Mission Profile
Rooted in first-principles physics: momentum, energy dissipation, geometry, and low gravity. LS2 delivers deterministic success for your lander across any low-gravity surface.
The Four Phases of Secure Upright Landing:
Phase 1: Terminal Descent
LS2 maintains structural alignment for a touchdown speed of 1 to 6 m/s, utilizing your lander’s thrusters. This ensures the system is optimized for powered braking maneuvers.
Phase 2: Initial Contact & Mitigation
Upon touchdown, the system absorbs 70-85% of peak forces across its structure, fully protecting your lander and sensitive payload. This is achieved through the LS2 Cascade Effect: impact forces are exponentially divided and dissipated as they travel away from the initial contact points, eliminating structural shock before it reaches the lander.
Phase 3: Link Fracture (Gimbal Release)
Frangible links shear instantly upon impact, freeing the passive gimbal to provide immediate, adaptive self-righting (upright) stability.
Phase 4: Self-Righting & Stabilization
The frame and gimbal passively rotate, achieving assured upright posture and omnidirectional stability on uneven terrain and slopes up to 45°.
This process directly eliminates the instability failure modes inherent to
lunar landings on uneven and challenging terrain.
Landing Complete: Mission Ready
Your lander is secure and upright. LS2 is rated to enable high-value, multi-site exploration hops of 10-50 meters, leveraging residual lander propellant. This offers mission planners unprecedented flexibility for site correction or scientific exploration.
Competitive Advantage
Why LS2 Wins Where Others Struggle:
Legacy rigid legs have dominated for 70 years — but they weren’t designed for today’s autonomous, off-nominal missions.
LS2 changes that equation.
Rooted in First Principles:
We didn’t tweak legs. We asked, what does physics actually require? The answer: passive geometry, force distribution, low-gravity stability — not active crutches.
Built on First Principles,
Not Legacy Assumptions
For 70 years, landing systems have been built on the same assumption: rigid legs are necessary, terrain is forgiving, active control can fix everything.
At CrescentTide, we started from scratch and
asked the questions nobody else was:
Do we need legs at all? Why are we fighting the
Moon instead of working with it?
From those fundamentals — momentum, energy dissipation, geometry, and low gravity —
we reasoned upward.
No rigid legs. No active complexity. No assumptions.
Force Mitigation Cascade Effect
The result? A passive, polyhedral stabilization system that:
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Distributes forces through multi-point contact
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Absorbs and cascades shock via layered vertices
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Self-rights via pendulum effect in low gravity
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Stabilizes on equilateral triangular faces once settled
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Enables multi-site hops with residual propellant
This isn’t incremental improvement. It’s ruthless reduction to physics basics and fearless rebuilding; from fragile, one-shot landings to assured, mobile, multi-mission capability for your lander and payloads.
We don’t build landers or payloads, we enable the companies that do so you can focus on propulsion, avionics, science, mining, ISRU, and the stars.
LS2 isn’t just hardware; it’s a declaration that we can do better by thinking harder and starting over when the old way is broken. Partner with us to make the impossible routine.
Partner with CrescentTide:
Tailored solutions for landers, payloads, and the new lunar economy: integration, licensing, and manufacturing support that keeps you at the center.
INTEGRATION CONSULTING
The Expert Partner
Use our leadership team for structural analysis, LS2 integration, mission assurance, and TRL advancement. We partner to assure your lander and payloads arrive ready to work.
TECHNOLOGY LICENSING
Strategic Access
Secure flexible licensing agreements for LS2 framework and gimbal mechanism. Gain access to a passive, proven stabilization system that enhances without redesign.
COLLABORATIVE
MANUFACTURING
Scalable Production
Partner with our supply chain experts to integrate LS2
into your manufacturing pipeline. Scalable production for landers and payloads with quality and speed you can trust.
Our Mission
A Mandate for Mission Assurance.
For nearly 70 years, rigid-leg designs (Surveyor I, 1966) have dominated.
This legacy approach has led to repeated failures, multi-billion dollar losses,
and ongoing risk to global leadership in space exploration.
We set out to replace legs with a proven, upright solution.
Where we started:
Born under a crescent moon in 1969, I grew up watching Apollo missions and
surfing Huntington Beach. I learned early that the tides are powerful, beautiful,
and utterly dependable — they answer to the Moon without fighting it.
That harmony inspired the name CrescentTide: a reminder that
we should work with the Moon instead of against it.
When Odysseus tipped in 2024 and Athena followed in 2025, brilliant teams lost missions before they even began — defeated by a variable they couldn’t control. Landing should not be the thing that breaks us, it should be as routine as an airplane touching down so the real work (drills, rovers, science, ISRU) can take center stage.
This conviction created CrescentTide:
We refuse to accept “good enough” when the stars are waiting.
CrescentTide is the agile, high-leverage engineering firm
dedicated to solving this fundamental unreliability.
Our commitment extends beyond the hardware: We serve as a technical
integration partner, supported by a robust network of seasoned aerospace
advisors, to ensure every mission and every payload is secured.
Nick Herberger, Founder
YOUR MISSION.
LANDING SECURED.