WORLDTECHNASA Drone Test Validates SPLICE Landing Navigation Payload
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NASA reports that it has demonstrated navigation technology intended to let spacecraft find their own safe touchdown points on the Moon and elsewhere. In trials, an Alta-X drone equipped with the agency's SPLICE payload carried out simulated lunar descent and landing manoeuvres.
Drone trials over a dry lakebed
The tests were conducted at Rogers Dry Lake, close to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The Alta-X drone carried the Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) guidance, navigation and control payload through the simulated approach and touchdown sequence.
Researchers at Johnson Space Center in Houston developed the payload. Specialists at NASA Armstrong then worked to integrate, test and fly it aboard the drone in June and July. During hover manoeuvres, SPLICE maintained communication with the remotely piloted aircraft.
How the system chooses where to land
During the trials, the payload's guidance system mapped the ground and assessed candidate landing areas. It generates high-resolution digital elevation maps from light-detection and sensor data. Should the system judge the targeted zone unsafe, it redirects the drone to a safer spot.
NASA says SPLICE is designed to support precise landings and to spot and avoid potential hazards, a capability the agency regards as critical for its missions to the Moon and Mars.
Preparations for the next full-scale test
Earlier flights verified communications, data handling, telemetry and command-and-control performance between the payload and the drone. A full-scale test at Voyager Technologies in Mojave, California, is scheduled for later this month.
NASA has worked with several commercial lunar lander providers to incorporate versions of SPLICE into their platforms. Davis Adams, the NASA project manager, described the flight test as the culmination of almost a decade of project work.
Open questions
- What will the full-scale test at Voyager Technologies show?
- When will SPLICE first fly on a commercial lunar lander?