In the overall study of the design and performance of the lunar Lander, analysis of touchdown dynamics of the landing stage is an important part. In this paper, the influence of the lunar Lander’s body deformation on the landing performance is studied. First, the equations with the flexible part are derived from the subsystem method and deducing a multi-mass model by comparing and analyzing the mode of the body in Lander. Second, based on the existing aluminum honeycomb buffering and the model used in the landing-impact tests for the soft-landing system, a finite element model for the cantilever-type landing gear with four legs is established in MSC.Patran and submitted to MSC.Dytran to conduct a simulation analysis. Finally, the flexibility of lander’s body to the performance in landing is studied. Results show that the deformation of the body has considerable effect on the overloading of the lunar Lander system though the deforming can absorb litter energy during landing
