A soft landing is any type of aircraft, rocket or spacecraft-lander landing that does not result in damage to/the destruction of the vehicle or anything on board. (Contradictory to Hard landing.)
This can be achieved by
parachute —often this is into water.
vertical rocket powered landing, often referred to as VTVL (vertical landing referred to as VTOL, is usually for aircraft landing in a "level" attitude, rather than rockets — first achieved with an orbital rocket vehicle stage on December 22, 2015).
horizontal landing such as with the Space Shuttle also known as VTHL.
being caught as attempted with Genesis (spacecraft) and followed by some other form of landing.
Soft landing can be contrasted with the term hard landing.
