Seminars

Abstract: Optical navigation (OpNav) is one of the principal forms of navigation for interplanetary spacecraft. This talk explores the origin and history of OpNav---from before the space age to the present---and motivates the new problems facing spacecraft navigators today. Against this backdrop, a number of recent OpNav experimental results are presented, with a focus on the 2023 Lunar Flashlight OpNav experiment called LONEStar. Operated by Georgia Tech, the Lunar Flashlight mission was launched in December 2022 and ejected from the Earth-Moon system by a May 2023 flyby of Earth. After leaving the Earth-Moon system, and while in heliocentric space, the Georgia Tech team commanded the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft to collect images of the Earth, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These images were used for a number of novel navigation experiments, including the first-ever demonstration of interplanetary navigation using only optical sightings of distant planets. Results from these experiments will be presented.

Bio: Dr. John Christian is a spacecraft navigator, author, and professor. He is an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and holds a faculty joint appointment at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Christian is most well-known for his contributions in celestial optical navigation (OpNav), planetary terrain relative navigation (TRN), and star/asterism identification. He has supported navigation activities for the Space Shuttle, International Space Station (ISS), Orion/Artemis, Lunar Flashlight, IM-1 Odysseus lander, IM-2 Athena lander, and other space exploration missions. Dr. Christian is an AAS Fellow and an AIAA Associate Fellow.