NEW YORK – A half century later, humans are finally returning to the Moon. At least, that’s the plan. The soon-to-be-completed Artemis 1 mission has kicked off our lunar reconciliation, and the upcoming Peregrine 1 mission could mark the first vehicle to touch down on the Moon since the Apollo program.

Things will look a lot different this time than in 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong relied on maps to carefully navigate the Lunar Module Eagle onto the Moon’s surface.

Peregrine 1, which is set to take off in early 2023, could mark an entirely new era of lunar landings: People no longer need to do the high-stakes maneuvering on their own.

Under a NASA contract, the Pittsburgh-based space robotics company Astrobotic will launch the uncrewed Peregrine. The landing will rely on tools like the Deep Space Network (NASA’s array of giant radio antennas), motorized telescopes called star trackers, and navigation Doppler lidar to get most of the job done autonomously.

Lidar technology (the name comes from “light detection and ranging”) uses lasers to measure the distance between objects based on the time it takes for light to return to the receiver. Doppler lidar goes a step further with a more complex pulse that can detect the movement and relative speed of those objects.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed vehicles on Mars several times successfully using radar systems, which rely on radio waves instead of lasers to track speed and location. But for its advantages in terms of cost, size, and power, “we think lidar systems are ideal for these commercial, lower-cost robotic missions to the Moon,” says Andrew Horchler, chief research scientist at Astrobotic.

Doppler lidar is also being developed to guide today’s futuristic tech like self-driving cars and drones — now, it will bring a makeover to space navigation that has been decades in the making.

And if Moon missions succeed over the next few years, NASA and companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and SpaceX hope to land crews on Mars. “Exploration of the Moon and Mars is intertwined,” notes the NASA site for the initiative, because the equipment used on lunar missions can be tested and adapted for the Martian surface.

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