Lunar testbed

A new vision-based navigation software system for autonomous planetary landings, tested at ESA using a scale-model Moonscape has been recognised for excellence by France’s ONERA aerospace centre. The landing software was evaluated in real life using a compact scale model of the lunar surface linked to a mobile camera, set up in ESA’s Control Hardware Laboratory, located in the ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The testbed includes a Sun-like light source.