HD 84121
The Albatross lands.
For centuries, word smiths have wrestled with the oddness of saying "water landing" when no land at all is involved. Unfortunately, no good alternative word ever made it into regular use. In this case, it's barely even water that the ship is landing on, it's a cold aqueous solution of water and ammonia, mostly. This is a good thing in this case- water-ammonia blends freeze at much lower temperatures than water. If it had been pure water, there would be nothing out there but a sea of ice, and nowhere for the ship to set down. The Albatross, like all of its sister ships, lacks any "hard surface" landing capability, that feature being passed up in favor of economy.
It's so cold that despite being in solution, some water manages to freeze. But when the water freezes, the ratio of ammonia to liquid water increases in the remainder, and as that ratio rises, so does the freezing point of the solution. It creates an equilibrium- for any given temperature, some of the water in the liquid is frozen. The result is a surface that is not entirely liquid, but is certainly not solid. Soft slush would be the best description. The landing of the ship has left a trail two miles long, clearly visible- it will will take a while for it to fill back in again, but it will.
The other very important thing about landing the Albatross is that the water must be deep enough, or else, horrible things happen. This is usually determined with a laser sensor- standard equipment on all ships of this type. The laser won't travel far through water but it doesn't have to. If there's no return from the beam at all, then obviously the water is more than deep enough.
Here, much of the slush is shallow, but there are deeper areas the ship can land in.
The target is close, only about a mile and a half away over this slushy sea, in a much shallower area: according to readings taken before the landing, less than a foot deep there!