eVTOL UAS with Lunar Lander Trajectory

About this technology

Overview

Lunar landers are critical to enabling NASA’s mission of sustained human presence on the Moon. These spacecraft require advanced landing technologies (e.g., sensors, algorithms, navigation loops) to enable automated and precise entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on planetary surfaces. EDL operations rely on advanced, high-accuracy sensors that enhance navigation precision and improve the control performance of the spacecraft. These sensors must undergo rigorous testing and validation on Earth before mission use. To test EDL sensors today, organizations generally use helicopter or rocket flights to simulate lander trajectories. However, helicopters are not capable of achieving the rapid descents experienced by landers (due to vortex ring state). Rocket flights are expensive, high risk, often not repeatable, and cannot be performed in rapid succession. This limits the volume and quality of data available for EDL sensor verification and validation, making iterative testing and development slower and lower fidelity than desired. In response to this challenge, engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) have developed an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) unmanned aerial system (UAS) designed to fly trajectories with high similitude to those flown by lunar landers. The NASA invention is poised to enable rapid development and testing of EDL sensors and improve EDL sensor testing data quality at a fraction of the cost of alternative methods.