[meteorite-list] COBALT Flight Demonstrations Fuse Technologies to Gain Precision Landing Results

[Ron Baalke]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6780

COBALT Flight Demonstrations Fuse Technologies to Gain Precision Landing Results
March 17, 2017

Many regions in the solar system beckon for exploration, but they are 
considered unreachable due to technology gaps in current landing systems. 
The CoOperative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technologies (COBALT) project, 
conducted by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and Human 
Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, could change that.

Through a flight campaign this month through April, COBALT will mature 
and demonstrate new guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) technologies 
to enable precision landing for future exploration missions.

"COBALT will allow us to reduce the risk in developing future landing 
systems and will benefit robotic landers to planetary surfaces by allowing 
for autonomous precision landing," said LaNetra Tate, STMD's Game Changing 
Development (GCD) program executive. "This will definitely become a game-changing 
technology."

The campaign will pair and test new landing sensor technologies that promise 
to yield the highest-precision navigation solution ever tested for NASA 
space landing applications.

The technologies, a Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), which provides ultra-precise 
velocity and line-of-sight range measurements, and the Lander Vision System 
(LVS), which provides terrain relative navigation, will be integrated 
and flight tested aboard a rocket-powered vertical takeoff, vertical landing 
(VTVL) platform. The platform, named Xodiac, was developed by Masten Space 
Systems in Mojave, California.

"In this first flight campaign, we plan to successfully complete the integration, 
flight testing and performance analysis of the COBALT payload," explained 
John M. Carson III, COBALT project manager. "This is considered a passive 
test, where COBALT will be solely collecting data, while the Xodiac vehicle 
will rely on its GPS for active navigation.""

In a follow-up flight campaign in summer 2017, COBALT will become the 
active navigation system for Xodiac, and the vehicle will use GPS only 
as a safety monitor and backup.

"The knowledge from these flights will lead into the development of systems 
for deployment in future NASA landing missions to Mars and the moon," 
said Carson.

So how does it work?

The technologies themselves are very different, but together they are 
a recipe for precision landing.

The NDL, developed at NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC), is an evolution 
of a prototype flown by the former ALHAT (Autonomous precision Landing 
and Hazard Avoidance Technology) project on the NASA Morpheus vehicle 
in 2014. The new NDL is 60 percent smaller, operates at nearly triple 
the speed and provides longer range measurements.

"NDL functionally is similar to the radar systems used in previous Mars 
landers, Phoenix and Mars Science Laboratory," explained Farzin Amzajerdian, 
NDL chief scientist at Langley. "The major difference is that the NDL 
uses a laser instead of a microwave as its transmitter. Operating at almost 
four orders of magnitude higher frequency makes the measurement a whole 
lot more accurate. NDL also is much smaller than radar systems, which 
is a big deal as every ounce counts when sending a lander to Mars or other 
destinations."

LVS, developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is a camera-based 
navigation system that photographs the terrain beneath a descending spacecraft 
and matches it with onboard maps to determine vehicle location, explained 
Carl Seubert, the COBALT project lead at JPL.

"This allows the craft to detect its location relative to large landing 
hazards seen in the onboard maps, such as large boulders and terrain outcroppings," 
Seubert said.

COBALT is one springboard for these technologies, which will find their 
way into future missions. The NDL design is geared toward infusion onto 
near-term lunar, Mars or other missions. The LVS was developed for infusion 
onto the Mars 2020 robotic lander mission, and has application to many 
other missions.

"Both NDL and LVS come from more than a decade of NASA research and development 
investments across multiple projects within robotic and human exploration 
programs, and from the hard work and dedication of personnel across the 
agency," said Carson.

"These COBALT technologies give moon and Mars spacecraft the ability to 
land much more precisely, improving access to interesting sites in complex 
terrain and to any exploration assets previously deployed to the surface," 
said Jason Crusan, director of NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems division. 
"Landings will also be more controlled and gentle, potentially allowing 
smaller landing legs and propellant reserves, and resulting in lower mission 
risk, mass and cost."

The COBALT team is managed at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, 
and comprises of engineers from JSC, JPL in Pasadena, California, and 
LaRC in Hampton, Virginia. All three centers will jointly conduct the 
flight campaign and post-flight data analysis.

"The progress and success of the COBALT project has relied on the team 
dynamic between NASA centers that started during the prior ALHAT project," 
said Carson. "The team has a common goal to develop and deploy precision 
landing GN&C technologies, and they maintain constant communication and 
a focus on collaboration to iron out the technical challenges and operational 
constraints required to develop, interface and successfully test the sensors 
and payload."

COBALT involves multiple NASA programs, including the Human Exploration 
and Operations Mission Directorate's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES), 
and the Game Changing Development and Flight Opportunities programs, both 
under STMD. In collaboration with the AES program, NASA is paving the 
way to reach farther into space.

Based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, 
the Flight Opportunities program funds technology development flight tests 
on commercial suborbital space providers of which Masten is a vendor. 
The program has previously tested the LVS on the Masten rocket and validated 
the technology for the Mars 2020 rover.

The COBALT flights will demonstrate blended LVS and NDL measurement viability 
for the precise, controlled soft landing of future missions. While the 
sensors are key enablers for future human and robotic landing missions 
to Mars, the moon and other solar system destinations, the COBALT payload 
also will provide a reusable platform for integration and testing of other 
precision landing and hazard avoidance capabilities developed within NASA 
or industry.

For more information about the COBALT project, visit:

https://gameon.nasa.gov/cooperative-blending-of-autonomous-landing-technology-cobalt/

For more information about the Flight Opportunities program, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/index.html

News Media Contact
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good at jpl.nasa.gov

Leslie Williams
Flight Opportunities program
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
leslie.a.williams at nasa.gov
661-276-3893

Joe Atkinson
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
Joseph.s.atkinson at nasa.gov
757-864-5644

Written by Denise Stefula
Langley Research Center

2017-073