systems have been developed for rovers
used to patrol Mars and the moon. Rovers
can now depart from the lander for explo-
ration purposes with the ability to return to
it at a later time.
Presently, NGC is working with the Euro-
pean company, Airbus, to land a robotic
satellite on the lunar South Pole. NGC will
be designing the landing system, a soft-
ware called the Autonomous Planetary
Landing System, that will guide the satel-
lite, detect obstacles, judge the level of
danger on a site and autonomously decide
where to land safely.
On previous missions to the moon, as-
tronauts were on board to select landing
spots. During Mars explorations, vehicles
were landed in large, open valleys, far away
from iconic and dangerous landmarks like
craters. For future missions, however, sci-
entists want to land closer to features like
the rim of a crater for further examination.
The problem is that photographs of land-
ing spots taken from orbiting satellites
during earlier missions have limited reso-
lution; smaller hazardous surface material
like rocks aren’t visible. “As we get closer
SEPTEMBER 2016
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