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Active TRL 4 (started at 4, targeting 6)
NASA and commercial missions to the lunar surface will require low-mass, cost-effective, high-reliability sensors. Navigating and landing on the lunar surface is one of the most challenging aspects of lunar exploration. The surface of the Moon has continuously changing lighting conditions – posing unique challenges to the current state-of-the-art optical navigation systems that depend on features being illuminated by sunlight. The Maturation of Robust Landing Lidar System is a dual-mode lidar (light detection and ranging) landing sensor system that uses active Doppler and ranging techniques in conjunction with state estimation algorithms and a lunar terrain database to supply precision knowledge of range, velocity, and terrain-relative position, regardless of lighting conditions. Researchers will integrate multiple functions into a single sensor to reduce size, weight, and power as well as improve performance, robustness, and reliability of the hardware for reusable lunar, planetary, and asteroid landers.
Problem Statement
Continuously changing lighting conditions pose a challenge to conventional optical navigation techniques that depend on observing features illuminated by sunlight. Current precision-landing capabilities use medium-range sensors such as Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL) and Optical Moon Proximity Sensor (OMPS) for range and velocity measurements up to approximately 3 miles, enabling soft landings. However, terrain relative navigation, usually operated at altitudes higher than 9 miles, require a longer-range lidar sensor. A successful lunar mission will rely on the information from a relative terrain navigation to avoid hazards while also producing a soft landing. Future lunar missions will require new low-mass, low-cost, and high-reliability precision landing and hazard-avoidance technologies that enable successful lunar landings, regardless of location and lighting conditions.
Technology Maturation
A flight test on Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket aims to expose the lidar-based landing sensor system to the intended range of operational altitudes and velocities for lunar operations. The sensor systems are designed to perform navigation from altitudes over 9 miles and vehicle velocities over approximately half a mile per second (1000 m/s). The flight test of the sensor system is designed to maximize test coverage over its entire range of performance (i.e. the range and range rates experienced on a typical lunar landing trajectory). By doing so, the flight test will demonstrate the ability to perform real-time navigation under realistic operational conditions.
- Efficient: Provides low-mass, low-cost, and high-reliability precision landing and hazard avoidance technology
- Safer: Provides precision knowledge of range, velocity, and terrain-relative position regardless of location and lighting conditions
Future Customers
- Future NASA and commercial lunar missions, such as those through NASA’s Artemis program and Commercial Lunar Payload Services
- NASA and commercial missions requiring landing on other solar system bodies such as Mars and Europa
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