HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — The scientists at the Measurement Systems Laboratory at Langley Research Center who developed a better way to land spacecraft have a current example of their technology in action on the Odysseus lander that went to the Moon.
Several weeks ago, the Super Doppler weather team came here to show you a tech demonstration of the Navigation Doppler Lidar, or NDL. It’s a series of lasers and telescopes that can precisely tell a spacecraft where it’s located above the ground down the the centimeter. So how did it work?
“The navigation Doppler radar provides the precision altitude and velocity of the vehicle as it’s coming down the last five to 10 kilometers,” said Navigation Doppler Lidar principal investigator Farzin Amzajerdian. “Before we used to say five, but now, we want to say 10, 15 kilometers, because the way it performed in this last mission. But that measurement is very critical in order to do precision landing and safe landing.”
That’s important at the Moon’s south pole, where the terrain is known to be rough. The NDL hitched a ride to the Moon on board the Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander, and when it came time for landing, the anxiety began to build.
“So sitting there waiting for the first data, I mean, it was pretty incredible looking up at the screen and seeing the first data point,” said NDL electronics and mission lead Aram Gragossian. “I mean, way above were expecting to see any any sort of information.”
As the data came back, the NDL team discovered that it worked better than expected.
“This was a great demonstration for the missions for sending humans back to the moon.” Amzajerdian said.
“So it was … very emotional,” Gragossian said, “but also very rewarding to be able to provide the data that can be used for a landing.”
With the huge success of the Navigation Doppler LIDAR, we could see this used for research missions all across the solar system, and even for applications here on Earth.
