Pinpoint automated lunar landing is one of the key challenges for coming years. This can be achieved only by developing precise absolute-navigation systems.

GMV recently began its activities within the VisOne project (VISual based On-board absolute Navigation Experiment). VisOne forms part of the STAR (Space Technology and Advanced Research) program funded by the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA), which aims to provide national support for application of the agreement between Romania and ESA on Romanian’s membership of ESA’s convention.

In the framework of this project GMV will continue working on the development of ESA’s ANTARES (Advanced optical landmark Navigation Technology for Automated lunaR landErS) system. Under this project GMV will lay down the bases for making this system compatible with Russia’s lunar resource mission, carrying out two successive system validation trials. The first of these trials will involve reproduction and processing of ANTARES images obtained from previous moon missions by means of a camera mounted on an optical bench and placed before a high-definition screen.

The second trial will involve testing the system in GMV’s Platform^® laboratory, where a camera mounted on a robotic arm will take images from a previously constructed moon surface mockup. The images, successively processed from the ANTARES system, will enable the vehicle’s position to be pinpointed on the basis of crater recognition in the captured images.