Word.ws English Dictionary

suicide burn

suicide burn noun: a method of soft-landing a rocket with a well-timed, high-thrust engine burn starting at the last possible second, such that it reaches a vertical speed of zero at precisely or almost precisely at the exact moment that it touches the landing pad and the engine shuts down.

Noun

suicide burn (plural suicide burns)

  1. A method of soft-landing a rocket with a well-timed, high-thrust engine burn starting at the last possible second, such that it reaches a vertical speed of zero at precisely or almost precisely at the exact moment that it touches the landing pad and the engine shuts down.
    Synonyms:
    hoverslam
  2. An instance of such a landing.
    • A suicide burn is a more efficient method of landing than slowly decelerating over the length of a long descent, as a smaller proportion of the engine's thrust is spent fighting against gravity.
  3. A rocket firing during such a landing.

Synonyms of suicide burn

Forms of suicide burn

pluralsuicide burns

Origin of suicide burn

From being an engine burn whose failure results in destruction, thus seemingly requiring "suicidal" confidence or courage to attempt.

Questions about suicide burn

What does suicide burn mean?
Suicide burn means a method of soft-landing a rocket with a well-timed, high-thrust engine burn starting at the last possible second, such that it reaches a vertical speed of zero at precisely or almost precisely at the exact moment that it touches the landing pad and the engine shuts down.
What part of speech is suicide burn?
Suicide burn is a noun.
What is the plural of suicide burn?
The plural of suicide burn is suicide burns.

Words near suicide burn in the dictionary

  1. suicide bombing
  2. suicide bombings
  3. suicide bombs
  4. suicide booth
  5. suicide booths
  6. suicide burn
  7. suicide burns
  8. suicide by cop
  9. suicide cable
  10. suicide cables
  11. suicide club

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: suicide burn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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