NASA Navigation Experiment Shows Promise for Planetary Landings
NASA announced on November 4, 2026, that it has successfully demonstrated technology designed to help spacecraft autonomously navigate to safe landing sites on the Moon and on other planets.
An Alta-X drone equipped with the agency's Safe and Precise Landing - Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) guidance, navigation, and control payload completed simulated lunar descent and landing maneuvers on August 27. The flight took place at Rogers Dry Lake near NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
During the tests, the SPLICE payload used an advanced guidance system to map the terrain and assess potential landing areas. If the system determines the targeted landing area is unsafe, it diverts the craft to a safer location. The system generates high-resolution digital elevation maps from light-detection and sensor data.
Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston developed the SPLICE payload and partnered with specialists at NASA Armstrong to integrate, test, and fly it aboard the Alta-X drone in June and July. Those tests verified communications, data handling, telemetry, and command-control performance in preparation for a full-scale test at Voyager Technologies in Mojave, California, later this month.
"This flight test is the culmination of almost a decade of work for the SPLICE project," said Davis Adams, NASA project manager. "This flight raised the technology readiness level, priming it for integration into future robotic and crewed lunar flights. Validation of the guidance and navigation systems is applicable to terrestrial, lunar, and Martian descent and landing missions."
NASA has worked with a number of commercial lunar lander providers to implement iterations of SPLICE into their platforms, and a number of landers slated for upcoming Moon Base missions leverage data collected through systems like SPLICE to execute soft touchdowns on the lunar surface. Adams said the agency is coordinating with industry on use of the guidance system once it is available in the NASA software catalog, currently planned for this fall. (Source: NASA)
Source: NASA
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国国家航空航天局总部大楼（联邦固定图库） / NASA headquarters (federal fixed image library)
