Co-Operative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technology (COBALT)

At the system level, COBALT achieved TRL4 through bench top testing in a lab environment. Through the open loop flight test campaign, the Navigation Doppler Lidar component of COBALT achieved TRL5. The project was unable to perform the planned closed loop flight campaign due to technical difficulties with the system avionics. The project has reformulated into a FY18 new start called SPLICE. The COBALT Project integrated a navigation payload onboard the Masten Space Systems xodiac suborbital rocket vehicle and performed three tethered tests and two free flights. The COBALT navigation solution blends a NASA Doppler LIDAR velocity and range measuring capability with a inertial measurement unit and vision based lander system to provide terrain relative navigation technology. The COBALT integrated system acquires measurements and generates a navigation and landing solution in real-time. During the open loop, free flight test campaign it was determined that the integrated computer processing capability was insufficient for real-time calculation needs and needed to be increased to a parallel processing capability. The required technology scope was changed to include computer architecture enhancements which were incorporated into a new project named SPLICE.