NASA Project Seeks to Demo GN&C Tech for Space Exploration – ExecutiveGov

NASAs human exploration and operations mission directorate will launch a flight campaign that seeks to demonstrate guidance, navigation and controltechnologies designed to facilitateprecision landing forspace exploration missions.

NASA said Saturdayit willtest the Navigation Doppler Lidar and theLander Vision Systemthrough April as part of theCo-Operative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technologies project.

Both the NDL, which offers velocity and line-of-sight range measurements, andthe LVS, which provides terrain relative navigation capacity, will be integrated and flight tested on a Masten Space Systems-built rocket-powered vertical take-off and landing system called Xodiac.

COBALT launches will help demonstrate combined LVS and NDL measurement capacities as part of NASAsefforts to develop precise soft-landing technologies for future missions.

In this first flight campaign, we plan to successfully complete the integration, flight testing and performance analysis of the COBALT payload, saidJohn Carson III, project manager of COBALT.

NASA also seeks to demonstrate COBALT as anactive navigation system for Xodiac through afollow-up flight campaign in thesummer.

NASAs Langley Research Center developed the NDL as an updated prototype of the former Autonomous Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology used on the Morpheus vessel.

The space agencysJet Propulsion Laboratory created the LVS as a camera-based navigation system designed to capture images of the terrain beneath a spacecraft and cross-examine recorded data with maps to pinpoint the vehicles location.

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NASA Project Seeks to Demo GN&C Tech for Space Exploration - ExecutiveGov