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Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is adopted to simulate the peak impact load, the water entry process and the water entry characteristics of a re-entry capsule with the complex capsule motions modelled by a developed six degrees of freedom fluid-solid coupling model. Diffused particle distribution is developed and used in the simulations to decrease memory and computational cost. The results show that the six degrees of freedom model and diffused particle distribution are valid. The results obtained by the improved SPH method match well with experimental results, and the maximal impact load of the capsule may reach more than 10 G, even tens of G. In addition, the peak impact loads are significantly affected by the capsule vertical velocity, the capsule mass, and the pitch angle, while are slightly affected by the horizontal velocity. More concretely, the peak impact load increases with the increase of vertical velocity, and decreases with the increase of mass. However, there is no definite law between the peak load and the pitch angle. These results can provide a foundation for guiding capsule design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]