Precision planetary landing technology

On March 21 a flight test for verification and validation of the SPARTAN navigation system was carried out in Portugal.

The SPARTAN project (SPAce exploration Research for Throttleable Advanced eNgine), funded under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7), aims at developing and testing a new hybrid engine for precision planetary landing.

SPARTAN aims to develop a new throttleable hybrid engine in which a typical solid propellant (HTPB) is fed through a liquid oxidixer (H2O2) whose flow is regulated through an electro valve to modulate the thrust level. Four of these hybrid engines will be fitted on a lander mock-up and several tests are now underway. The last test will see the mockup dropped by a helicopter from a height of about 300 meters to perform autonomously a hovering and automatic landing phase.

For this first test the vehicle has been specially fitted out with several avionics systems custom-built for UAVs, supplied and operated by UAVision Portugal. These include a GPS-aided inertial navigation system (INS), a laser altimeter, an onboard computer and a telemetry system. The UAV successfully climbed up to 150 meters and performed several maneuvers for about 7 minutes. 

Within SPARTAN GMV is responsible for various important activities such as avionics design, assembly, integration and validation. In particular GMV has designed and performed the whole guidance, navigation and control (GNC) breadboarding; this includes GNC SW coding, sensors and HW procurement, breadboarding design and integration. Moreover GMV has been actively supporting navigation-algorithm design.

GMV has also carried out a series of important verification and validation activities within SPARTAN, such as crane drop test monitoring for leg-design validation, interaction of laser altimeter with the engine’s plume during hot firing tests (performed in July 2012 at SAAB in Sweden) and flight verification of the GPS-aided inertial unit and laser altimeter.

The test has confirmed the main design criteria and has also shown that navigation performance meets system requirements.