Jellyfish-Inspired Biomimetic Architecture for Autonomous Attitude Control and Safe Landing of Reusable Launch Vehicles: Distributed Sensing, Proportional Actuation, and Quantitative Feasibility Assessment

The terminal descent and autonomous landing of reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) demands robust attitude sensing, rapid orientation correction, and controlled energy absorption at touchdown. This paper presents a conceptual framework and feasibility review that maps the precise neuro-sensory architecture of Scyphozoan jellyfish onto actionable engineering design principles for RLV terminal landing control. The jellyfish sensorimotor loop — gravitational statolith displacement, distributed rhopalial sensing, nerve-net integration, and proportional muscular correction — is translated into a five-step engineering architecture: distributed MEMS IMU sensing, majority-vote signal fusion, and selective firing of gimballed micro-thrusters. Five engineering concepts are developed and assessed: (I) a rim-distributed redundant IMU ring; (II) a passive pendulum-mass righting mechanism; (III) magnetorheological adaptive landing legs inspired by mesogleal viscoelasticity; (IV) an aerodynamic base-flare; and (V) a gimballed distributed micro-thruster ring providing continuous 360° attitude authority with graceful fault degradation. Quantitative feasibility estimates are provided for 1,000 kg and 25,000 kg class vehicles. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first conceptual framework applying Scyphozoan sensorimotor biology to aerospace landing system design.