Verification and Validation of Signature-based Terrain Relative Navigation System for Precision Landing

Astrobotic’s OPAL (Optical Precision Autonomous Landing) system, developed under public-private partnership, is a stand-alone, bolt-on commercial terrain relative navigation (TRN) sensor enabling pose estimation over a wide range of altitudes, off-nadir angles, and velocities. TRN enables spacecraft to land at more challenging sites through pinpoint landing and a priori hazard avoidance. The OPAL system will fly aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission One that will launch in 2023 under the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. OPAL’s testing and verification and validation approaches used are overviewed here, including software testing with simulated data, hardware-in-the-loop testing, terrestrial flight testing, and lander integration.