STMD Flight Opportunities
A flight testing success story
Enabling landers to autonomously identify the safest sites to touch down
Moon craters and their surrounding areas are high-value destinations for lunar missions since they may contain important resources and valuable science targets. However, these sites are also home to dangers such as steep slopes that are difficult to see in the challenging lighting conditions. As a result, selecting landing sites on lunar surfaces is a critical component for NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) missions. A new technology tested through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program is set to go to the Moon and help provide a safe and precise landing.
Astrobotic Technology’s Hazard Detection (HD) Lidar system scans and analyzes the terrain in real-time, enabling landers to autonomously map and select the safest landing sites. Lidar stands for light detection and ranging. The Pittsburgh-headquartered company will use its HD Lidar system when its Griffin lunar lander delivers science and technology payloads to the Moon during its CLPS delivery to the lunar south pole.
With Flight Opportunities support, Astrobotic first tested an engineering model of its advanced HD Lidar sensor in November 2024, confirming its ability to select a safe landing site by detecting and avoiding slopes, rough areas, and potential hazards. This flight test provided the Astrobotic team valuable data on the system’s performance, which was later leveraged by a second flight test in March 2026 with an integrated hazard detection and guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system to further validate the system ahead of its first lunar mission scheduled for later this year. These flight tests helped the company advance the technology for use on its CLPS mission.
Preparing for Griffin Mission One | Flight testing lidar hazard detection video | Additional information
The Astrobotic Griffin Mission One will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to deliver NASA payloads to the lunar south pole.Astrobotic’s HD Lidar system is designed to detect hazards as small as 5.9 inches (15 cm) and slopes greater than 10° to identify potential hazards, such as craters or large rocks. During the lander’s final descent phase, the spacecraft performs a stationary hover at an altitude of 100 meters — about t …