Description: Fibertek proposes the development of a low size, weight, and power in situ Lunar Lidar in support of NASA’s Artemis missions. The lidar will be engineered for the harsh lunar environment and thereby have additional utility to NASA for general planetary exploration. The lidar is vehicle or astronaut mounted; provides high-resolution point-cloud data for developing centimeter-scale terrain maps via simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) processing; and supports real-time, non-GPS navigation, obstacle detection, and hazard avoidance. Phase I testing established feasibility for Phase II by reducing major environmental risks including low temperature survival, operation in a vacuum, and radiation survivability with low Single Event Function Interrupt (SEFI) rates. The lidar operated after thermal vacuum cycles down to -150°C and core lidar electronics (lasers, detectors, and custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)) exhibited no destructive radiation effects or performance degradation. Phase II will engineer updates to the housing and power supply electronics, as well as perform random vibration and radiation testing.

Benefits: The Lunar Lidar particularly targets the NASA Artemis mission in support of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD). NASA Artemis III/ IV. On schedule to support 2028 mission NASA Lunar Terrain Vehicle contractors Future NASA Mars and situ exploration of planetary bodies

The proposed technology can support multiple commercial and DoD endeavors. Commercial Lunar Surface Economy Companies NASA LIFT 1 Mission Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) Provider and their customers, rovers NASA Human Lander Contractors DoD and Space Development Agency (SDA) are increasingly interested in the Cis-Lunar environment