Mars and Moon Exploration Passing Through the European Precision Landing GNC Test Facility

Abstract

The Precision Landing GNC Test Facility is successfully started and its detailed design phase is towards its completion. The manufacturing, integration and test phase will follow in order to perform the first flight test campaign in Marocco around mid 2008, during which it will be performed open loop tests for the validation of the navigation function of an experiment camara-based. This facility is approaching to be first one ever build with the characteristics mentioned in the paper and able to reproduce Mars and Moon powered descent trajectories with an high degree of fidelity. Preliminary flight tests will be performed before the Marocco flight campaign, from which it will be possible to have a first feedback about the potentiality of such a facility. A follow-on activity is foreseen in order to enhance the present facility in order to permit the validation of hazard avoidance and guidance algorithms.