TAMPA, Fla. — Engineers with the University of South Florida are developing technology to make landing on the moon safer and less expensive.
Peter Jorgensen is the Director of Engineering with the USF Institute of Applied Engineering.
A team with the institute returned from a trip to the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California. They flight-tested their technology and its ability to collect data about surface features, such as rocks and craters. The technology could ultimately allow for low-cost, fully autonomous moon landings.
"This specific challenge was designed to kind of drive technology, lighter, better, cheaper, faster. NASA has an interest to go to the moon. They want to explore the polar regions to find ice that they can use it to support human habitation and exploration," said Jorgensen.
Their innovation, the A-LiST (Automated Lidar Scanning Topography), was integrated onto a rocket-powered lander for a flight that simulated a lunar landing.
"It feeds navigation and hazard information into a guidance computer that would use that mapping information to tell the rocket where a safe place to land would be," said Jorgensen.
Eamon Conners, a USF senior, was part of the challenge. He assisted with pre-flight testing and post-flight testing. He started interning with the Institute of Applied Engineering two years ago and was recently promoted to engineering technologist.
"I went out there expecting to see a lot of cool things, but my expectations were exceeded. The Mojave Desert is very cool. There's a lot of cool business being conducted out there," said Conners.
The test flight is part of the NASA TechLeap Prize's Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge. The USF team was a challenge winner along with two other institutions. Winners received $500,000 in funding to advance their innovations.
"The goal is to ultimately develop technology that can either by itself enhance what we can do in space or lead to other technological breakthroughs," said Jorgensen. "We got a lot of really good data. The system would need enhancement before we could fly it to the moon, but this is a really good first step, it proved the technology is feasible."
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