NGC Aerospace Ltd

Published purpose

Space agencies, research institutes and private organizations are looking for commercial landing services in order to reach sites of interest on the Moon. Because of their poorly known local topography, such sites are potentially hazardous for landing. These landing systems will require to be equipped with high-accuracy navigation systems to accurately reach their target and Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA) systems to detect and avoid any surface hazards at touchdown. There is currently no readily available commercial systems to answer this need. The “Relative Navigation and Hazard Detection & Avoidance Integration for Commercial Landers” project aims at filling this need by developing a fully integrated and low-cost HDA system composed of a Lidar sensor, a camera sensor, an inertial measurement unit and an embedded processing unit where optical navigation and HDA functions are integrated. This innovative system will allow the reduction of the overall Moon landing system costs and bring more Canadian technology and know-how on the Moon.