Description: The agency has long identified that exploration and development of the solar system will require the development and maturation of precision landing and hazard avoidance technologies that are applicable to several destinations and missions. These robotic and human missions are projected to target small landing zones, as small as two adjacent football fields, that will have uncertain landing hazards contained within. Technologies that provide safe and precise landings will enable a variety of missions, whether it be scientific exploration or landing near prepared assets in support of space infrastructure development.

The Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) project is developing a portfolio of technologies to enable such missions. Three technologies are key to this portfolio: a hazard detection lidar sensor to generate a real-time digital elevation map of the landing zone, a flight software algorithm to quickly process the map to identify safe landing sites within the zone, and another flight software algorithm for powered descent guidance that both ensures the vehicle will point the hazard lidar sensor at the landing zone and then quickly divert to the selected safe site. SPLICE combines measurements from the lidar and other typical navigation sensors, such as a standard inertial measurement unit and a terrain relative navigation camera, to demonstrate a precision landing at the selected safe site.

At the end of the project, this suite of sensors, compute capability, and algorithms will have been built, implemented, and demonstrated to provide precision landing and hazard avoidance with representative terrain and trajectory environment. A spaceflight demonstration for PL&HA at the Moon is outside of scope of this project but is the near-term goal of the PL&HA Domain for each of the component technologies.

Benefits: Precision Landing technologies will enable landing within fifty meters of selected landing sites on the Moon and Mars. Hazard Avoidance technologies provide real-time identification and avoidance of rocks, slopes, craters, and other vehicle scale hazards that cannot easily be identified from orbit reconnaissance. The Hazard Detection Lidar provides a real-time high resolution digital elevation map of the landing zone and does not require the landing area to be illuminated for hazard avoidance, providing greater mission and site selection flexibility. The Hazard Detection software algorithm rapidly processes the digital elevation map, identifying slopes and clearance hazards used for autnomous site selection or for crew display. The descent guidance support multiple different constraints when it real-time produces a trajectory from the current estimated location. These constraints may include pointing the Hazard Detection Lidar at the landing zone, crew visibility of the landing area, and the flight envelope of the vehicle. The techniques used to fuse the real-time hazard detection lidar map with other contemporary navigation sensors will enable precision landing at the divert site.