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It could be two landers, one stacked on top of the other for takeoff, but separate for landing

EDIT: or a horizontal lander, packed on it's side for takeoff.

I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but landing something this tall seems quite complicated too in the first place.

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This is really thinking outside the box. Please read digital Apollo. It's that good.

go bigger this could be a pancake stack that separates into a swarm of puck like units according to some sequence

You’d be paying the extra mass cost of landing gears for each pancake - something has to absorb the impact of landing or they’ll just break apart. These landers already operate at the margin.

You do not need as many landing gears. No meat bags to protect, but you would need separate propulsion units, less the fuel for return trip. Landing gear is light weight. What was the landing gear ratio in other NASA unmanned probes? How did the asteroid interception land?

This is probe #2 from the company - NASA did not get there until Apollo 11 they are not the same... Computers are almost a billion times faster.

This is off the hook out side the box. If you landed functional units and the had some mechanism to connect them back up, you could reduce the force of landing... Oh wait.. this is exactly the plan for colonisation.

Seriously read digital apollo

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