So, let's say an astronaut has crashed his shuttle into earth only to find that there are no cities or any signs of human-made objects left on earth.

Another astronaut is orbiting earth in her space station, much like the ISS.

The only 2 human made objects left in the planet/universe are his ship and her space station (no cities, no satellites, no radio towers etc.) he is able to communicate with her through the radio gear on his shuttle every time she passes over him in orbit.

How could she manually land her reentry capsule at or near his location (without any satellites, ground control, etc.)? My idea is that they use the stars, sun, moon, and large landmasses to give her an idea of his coordinates and she manually steers her reentry capsule to meet him on earth. I am not sure if this is too far fetched or if it would be somewhat feasible for a sci fi story.

(Note that I am using fictional shuttles and technology that i am willing to make somewhat more advanced than current technology if necessary)

Thanks for the help!

Probably yes, within reasonable distance.

Any space-to-surface craft would be designed with a communications failure in mind and carry instruments like sextants and chronometers. With those, a trained aviator should be able to make precise orbit corrections and a reentry burn. Even if there is no ephemeris in the spacecraft, the astronaut should be able to fix the orbit relative to some stars and then plot the ground site from differences in radio reception quality. The latter would be quite inaccurate, of course.

The problem happens after the spacecraft enters the atmosphere. There would be no weather reports and the spacecraft will have little maneuvering capability. Small differences in atmospheric conditions could carry the spacecraft dozens or hundreds of miles off course.

In addition to this error there would be any mistake in the astronaut's calculation of the intended landing site.

Things to consider:

• Without light pollution the astronaut on the surface might be able to see the spacecraft, and tell exactly when it passes the horizon. A few sightings and a little math should give the exact position on the ground.


• A shuttle is not designed to land on rough fields. The choice might be between a crash on the ground or a water landing and sinking. An Apollo capsule was designed to land in the water, but supposedly survivable for a ground landing.


• Water landings could be a bad idea if there is no rescue boat coming.

Yes and no

This is doable. If you play Kerbal Space Program long enough, you learn how to do it. I can land landers on Laythe, which is more than 90% covered by an ocean, from a low orbit by eye with just a small thruster and a parachute. An astronaut who has had enough reentries should be familiar with the paths from low orbit to ground.

However, KSP much like science, assumes ideal conditions. There is a problem on real Earth called weather. Wind will push your vessel this way and that, and may be highly unpredictable. Rockets that we launch to space can compensate for it once they are high enough into the atmosphere, or after they exit it. Your astronaut, though, may end up landing dozens of kilometers away from her target.