There are various missions in the game where you are required to raid a planetary depot.
There’s one in the original base-building suite of quests, and then it crops up from time to time in guild and faction tasks.
By far the easiest way to raid a planetary depot is to use your ship. Overfly the place slowly, and blast it to bits with your photon cannon. It’s fast, profitable, and totally risk-free.
However, if you’re raiding the depot as part of a mission - DO NOT DO THIS. Your mission will FAIL, and you can get stuck.
The only way to destroy a planetary base as part of a mission is from the ground. You can do it on foot, using hand weapons, or you can use an exocraft. Using a ship does not count.
Unfortunately, if you destroy the depot using your ship, the game will not recognise that the depot has been destroyed. It will keep sending you back to destroy the same depot - but you can’t destroy it, because it’s already gone. So you’re stuck, and can never complete the mission.
In faction/guild quests, you can just cancel the mission - but the base-building quests all follow on from each other, and the only solution is to go back to an earlier save.
Be warned by my error!