NASA improves GIANT optical navigation technology for future missions

Goddard’s GIANT optical navigation software program helped information the OSIRIS-REx mission to the Asteroid Bennu. Right this moment its builders proceed so as to add performance and streamline useability for future missions.

As NASA scientists research the returned fragments of asteroid Bennu, the crew that helped navigate the mission on its journey refines their know-how for potential use in future robotic and crewed missions.

The optical navigation crew at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland, served as a backup navigation resource for the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Useful resource Identification, and Safety—Regolith Explorer) mission to near-Earth asteroid Bennu. They double-checked the first navigation crew’s work and proved the viability of navigation by visible cues.

Optical navigation makes use of observations from cameras, lidar, or different sensors to navigate the way in which people do. This cutting edge technology works by taking photos of a goal, comparable to Bennu, and figuring out landmarks on the floor. GIANT software program—that is quick for the Goddard Picture Evaluation and Navigation Device—analyzes these photos to supply data, comparable to exact distance to the goal, and to develop three-dimensional maps of potential touchdown zones and hazards. It may possibly additionally analyze a spinning object to assist calculate the goal’s mass and decide its middle—vital particulars to know for a mission making an attempt to enter an orbit.

“Onboard autonomous optical navigation is an enabling know-how for present and future mission concepts and proposals,” stated Andrew Liounis, lead developer for GIANT at Goddard. “It reduces the quantity of knowledge that must be downlinked to Earth, decreasing the price of communications for smaller missions, and permitting for extra science knowledge to be downlinked for bigger missions. It additionally reduces the variety of individuals required to carry out orbit willpower and navigation on the bottom.”

Throughout OSIRIS-REx’s orbit of Bennu, GIANT recognized particles flung from the asteroid’s floor. The optical navigation crew used photos to calculate the particles’ motion and mass, in the end serving to decide they didn’t pose a big risk to the spacecraft.

Since then, lead developer Andrew Liounis stated they’ve refined and expanded GIANT’s spine assortment of software program utilities and scripts.

New GIANT developments embody an open-source model of their software program launched to the general public, and celestial navigation for deep space journey by observing stars, the sun, and solar system objects. They’re now engaged on a slimmed-down bundle to assist in autonomous operations all through a mission’s life cycle.

“We’re additionally wanting to make use of GIANT to course of some Cassini knowledge with companions on the College of Maryland so as to research Saturn’s interactions with its moons,” Liounis stated.

Different innovators like Goddard engineer Alvin Yew are adapting the software program to doubtlessly support rovers and human explorers on the floor of the moon or different planets.

Adaptation, enchancment

Shortly after OSIRIS-REx left Bennu, Liounis’ crew launched a refined, open-source version for public use. “We thought-about quite a lot of modifications to make it simpler for the consumer and some modifications to make it run extra effectively,” he stated.

An intern modified their code to utilize a graphics processor for ground-based operations, boosting the picture processing on the coronary heart of GIANT’s navigation.

A simplified version referred to as cGIANT works with Goddard’s autonomous Navigation, Steering, and Management software program bundle, or autoNGC in methods that may be essential to each small and huge missions, Liounis stated.

Liounis and colleague Chris Gnam developed a celestial navigation capability which makes use of GIANT to steer a spacecraft by processing photos of stars, planets, asteroids, and even the sun. Conventional deep space navigation makes use of the mission’s radio alerts to find out location, velocity, and distance from Earth. Decreasing a mission’s reliance on NASA’s Deep House Community frees up a beneficial useful resource shared by many ongoing missions, Gnam stated.

Subsequent on their agenda, the crew hopes to develop planning capabilities so mission controllers can develop flight trajectories and orbits inside GIANT—streamlining mission design.

“On OSIRIS-REx, it could take as much as three months to plan our subsequent trajectory or orbit,” Liounis stated. “Now we will cut back that to every week or so of pc processing time.”

Their improvements have earned the crew steady help from Goddard’s Inside Analysis and Improvement program, particular person missions, and NASA’s House Communications and Navigation program.

“As mission ideas grow to be extra superior,” Liounis stated, “optical navigation will proceed to grow to be a obligatory element of the navigation toolbox.”