Near the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a space agency team installed and tested hazard avoidance instrumentation on a Huey helicopter.
Near the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a space agency team installed and tested hazard avoidance instrumentation on a Huey helicopter. Led by the Johnson Space Center and supported by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Langley Research Center, the Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology, or ALHAT, laser system provides a planetary lander the ability to precisely land safely on a surface while detecting any dangerous obstacles such as rocks, holes and slopes. Just north of Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility runway, a rock- and crater-filled planetary scape has been built so engineers can test the ability to negotiate away from risks.
Image credit: NASA/Dmitri Gerondidakis
Dec. 5, 2012