It’s a Marvelous Time for a Moon Landing

In six manned trips to the moon, NASA astronauts drove more than 56 miles in the “moon buggy,” placed six U.S. flags, and hit two golf balls.

By the time the Apollo program wrapped up, NASA made landing on the moon seem downright easy. It isn’t.

Computers and technology have advanced tremendously in the more than 50 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped on the moon, but overcoming the moon’s rough terrain, minimal gravity, and other variables remains as difficult as ever.

That’s not stopping Draper. The Draper Team is supporting NASA’s efforts to return to the moon by sending an autonomous lander to deliver science equipment to the lunar surface.

Going Back to the Moon

NASA’s Artemis program intends to send humans back to the moon, including setting up a base there. But before that can happen, more research is needed about the lunar surface.

That’s where the Draper Team comes in. Through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, Draper will deliver sensors to study seismic activity, lunar temperatures, and electric and magnetic fields. The payloads will be delivered to the Schrödinger Basin, located on the far side of the moon, a first for the U.S. Draper is utilizing the ispace-U.S. APEX®1.0 lunar lander which must be able to avoid hazards, and navigate a precise landing without a line of sight to the landing zone.

For this project, which is designated CP-12 by NASA, we are developing the descent, guidance, navigation, and control (DGN&C) system for the ispace-U.S. APEX®1.0 lunar lander and supporting systems engineering; and quality assurance for the autonomous lunar lander. We subcontracted the lander design and development to ispace technologies U.S. inc. (ispace-U.S.) and the payload integration to Karman Space & Defense.

The ispace-U.S. APEX®1.0 lunar lander is designed to deliver a variety of payloads to the moon. The Denver-based company, whose global headquarters was founded in 2010, is committed to developing technologies to support lunar transportation and infrastructure. The APEX®1.0 lunar lander offers the options of transporting orbital, stationary, and rover payloads. During CP-12, the APEX 1.0 will deploy two relay satellites into lunar orbit before its landing.

“ispace–U.S. is proud to lead the development of the APEX®1.0 lunar lander as part of our cislunar transportation and infrastructure capabilities. With orbital and landed payload capacity for NASA and commercial customers, the APEX®1.0 meets a strategic and diverse cargo fleet need for lunar transportation and logistics,” said Ron Garan, CEO of ispace-U.S.

Karman Space & Defense will handle the installation and integration of the NASA payloads onto the APEX®1.0 lander. Proper payload integration is critical to ensuring the payload is security-mounted to ensure successful delivery and functionality. Karman specializes in payload integration, boasting a 100 percent flight success rate.

“With a strong legacy supporting mission-critical platforms, Karman is proud to lead the mission payload integration and collaborate with the ispace team to fabricate, assemble and test the lander vehicle in our new spacecraft integration clean room. This mission is a great example of what Karman can accomplish, and we are excited to contribute to the future of lunar missions!” said Stephanie Sawhill, Chief Growth Officer, Karman Space & Defense.

The Challenges

The modern cell phone has more computing power than the Apollo spacecraft. Despite there being so many advancements in computing power and technology, it’s still incredibly difficult to land on the moon, let alone the far side of the moon.

The lunar surface is quite rough, covered with craters, dead volcanoes, rocks, and other formations, leaving few flat surfaces on which to land. Draper will rely on its long history of developing precision GNC systems to ensure we will land the ispace-U.S. APEX®1.0 lunar lander in the right spot.
Another challenge is slowing the spacecraft so it doesn’t crash into the moon’s surface. The moon’s gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth, which allows astronauts to bounce or float across the surface. But that gravitational tug is still strong enough to pull a vehicle down to the surface, resulting in a disastrous crash so the lander must be intentionally slowed as it approaches the surface. On Earth, slowing is often accomplished by parachutes. But the moon’s atmosphere is too thin, offering little resistance to parachutes. This means that any lander must employ rockets or other propulsion methods to slow it down as it approaches the surface. Balancing that propulsion vs. gravity to land smoothly is quite difficult; roughly half of all recent lunar landing attempts have been unsuccessful.
As far as dealing with the craft landing on the far side of the moon, that’s probably the easiest challenge to solve— our team will use relay satellites, provided by ispace-U.S., that will be in lunar orbit to maintain communications with the ispace-U.S. APEX®1.0 lander.

“I’m Sorry, Dave. I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That.”

There is a dream that autonomous vehicles will someday eliminate human error and ensure 100 percent safe travel. Already, many airplanes are running on autopilot for much of their travels.

Unfortunately, the full promise of autonomous systems isn’t quite there yet. In fact, manned lunar landings have had a higher success rate than autonomous ones. With so many variables at play when landing on the moon, human pilots are often better able to adapt and make adjustments on the fly.

Draper’s expertise in GNC and systems engineering will give it a leg up in successfully directing an autonomous lunar lander.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6…..

NASA announced and began accepting proposals for the CLPS program in 2018, with the first missions launching in 2024. To date, two other, NASA CLPS projects have attempted lunar landings.

The Draper team’s CP-12 mission is slated to launch in late 2026, and NASA has several more CLPS missions planned to launch between now and then.

Learn more about Draper’s work supporting CLPS and Artemis program.