To land on a planet in Elite Dangerous , you need a ship with the Horizons expansion (or Odyssey) and you must approach a landable body, enter orbital cruise, glide down, then switch to normal flight and perform a gentle vertical landing using your ship’s thrusters.

elite dangerous how to land on a planet

Know which planets you can land on

Not every planet or moon is landable, so the first step is picking the right target. In your system map and navigation panel, look for planets with a blue “landable” icon and surface gravity listed, which indicates that you can descend to them.

Landable bodies will show “Surface” and sometimes surface ports (settlements, ports, bases) when you select them. If a planet only shows orbital stations and no surface data or gravity readout, it is not landable.

Approaching the planet safely

Once you have your target planet (or a planetary base on its surface), you handle the approach in supercruise.

  • Line up with the planet in supercruise and throttle to a moderate setting so your “time to target” is manageable, often around 75% throttle in the blue zone.
  • Avoid pointing too steeply at the planet; coming in too fast and too steep will cause you to drop out of supercruise early and far from your target.
  • As you descend, watch for the ship transitioning through “Orbital Cruise” — this is the high-speed atmospheric approach layer that lets you skim the surface safely.

If you’re aiming for a settlement on the far side of the planet, do a wide, shallow approach so the base marker ends up directly in front of you rather than buried behind the horizon.

Orbital cruise and glide mode

After entering orbital cruise, you need to hit “glide” correctly to drop towards the surface without slamming into the planet.

  • Keep your nose pointed near your target but avoid exceeding about a 40–50 degree dive; if you go too steep, you will drop out of glide early and have to fly a long way in normal flight.
  • As your altitude decreases to the planet’s “glide entry” height, the HUD will switch to “Glide.” Your ship automatically pitches into a controlled high-speed descent.
  • During glide, do not make violent maneuvers; keep your target just slightly above the center of your HUD and let the glide carry you until it ends at a few kilometers above the ground.

When glide completes, you drop into normal surface flight at low altitude above the terrain or near the base you targeted.

Final descent and landing on the surface

Once out of glide, you use normal thrusters like a VTOL ship to land.

  • Reduce throttle to low speed and use vertical thrusters to control your descent rate; watch the vertical speed indicator and avoid dropping too fast into the red.
  • Deploy landing gear when you are close to the surface; this stabilizes the ship and enables the landing sensor to find a flat spot.
  • Look for the ship’s HUD circle to turn solid blue (for free landing) or for a highlighted pad marker if you’re at a planetary base. When the marker is centered and your vertical speed is gentle, keep easing down until the ship auto-locks to the surface.

If you are landing at a base:

  • Follow the approach vector to the settlement, then align with the landing pad hologram and stay within the blue guidance on your HUD.
  • If you overshoot the pad or snag structures with your landing gear, retract gear, reposition, then drop again more slowly.

Extra tips, tricks, and “feel”

Veteran commanders often mention that planetary landings feel intimidating at first but become routine once you understand the HUD cues.

  • Keep throttle low and make small inputs during the last kilometer; large stick movements near the ground often cause overcorrections and crashes.
  • On high-gravity worlds, come in even more carefully: use more forward speed with very gentle vertical descent, and be ready to boost upwards if you start sinking too fast.
  • If you drop out of supercruise too early and find yourself far from your target, just climb a bit, re-enter supercruise, and set up a shallower approach run.

Many forum guides describe a “rhythm”: supercruise → orbital cruise → glide → 5–10 km altitude → slow hover → soft touchdown. Once that rhythm clicks, landing on a planet in Elite Dangerous stops being scary and becomes one of the most satisfying parts of the game.

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.