Draper, Masten Test Guidance System

摘要

In what turned out to be a successful bid to mature critical guidance and navigation technology needed for extraterrestrial landings, engineers at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., wired an experimental guidance and navigation system into a suborbital test rocket and performed a simulated lunar landing. Draper integrated the Guidance Embedded Navigator Integration Environment (GENIE) system that it is building for NASA into Masten Space Systems' Xom-bie vehicle before flying the rocket on what Draper engineers called a "planetary trajectory." The test flight took place Feb. 2 at Masten's home base, the Mojave Air and Space Port. The GENIE-equipped Xombie rocket flew 50 meters straight up, then, maintaining altitude, flew 50 meters laterally before coming in for a landing within 12 centimeters of its target on the ground.