A planetary landing was a term used to describe the landing of a starship on a planet.
Within Starfleet the only known vessels capable of doing such a landing were the Intrepid class starships, such as USS Voyager. It is unknown if any other species starships were capable of this.
Performing a planetary landing is done when the use of transporters is not possible or when the Captain of the vessel decides so. The landing itself requires a significant amount of energy but can be performed when Deflector shield strength is low.
Intrepid class procedure
Landing
To commence a landing, Main engineering would need to take the warp core offline and vent all plasma from the nacelles. After that, all available power would be diverted to the atmospheric thrusters and the bridge crew is brought on standby. Code blue would then be given to all personnel on board the ship. - They would need to report to their assigned code blue stations. The Landing struts are brought online and inertial dampers set at maximum. When all decks had reported condition blue, the Officer at the Conn station would then commence the landing.
After a declining glide trajectory, just before the landing, the landing struts would be extended and locked, inertial dampers would be adjusted to match the gravity of the planet the ship was landing on, and the vessel would land on the surface. After the landing, the ships engines would be disengaged and thruster exhaust secured. The crew could now leave the ship.
Take-off
To leave the surface of a planet, all stations needed to prepare for code blue. Anti-grav thrusters would be brought online and enabled, Intertial dampers would be set to flight configuration and Impulse drive set to standby. After all stations had reported code blue, the officer at the conn position would perform the take-off.
Examples
- In 2371 USS Voyager landed, for the first time, on a planet to examine a strange radio signal. Due to atmospheric interference the use of transporters was not possible. (VOY: "The 37's")
- In 2372 whilst under Kazon control USS Voyager landed on a Class M planet to offload starfleet personel. (VOY: "Basics, Part I")
- In 2374 USS Voyager landed on a Class Y planet to rescue Tom Paris and Harry Kim, and to replenish their deuterium supply. (VOY: "Demon")
- In 2376 Voyager landed on the Vaadwaur homeworld to avoid attackers in orbit. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth")