NASA’s Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL)—a laser light instrument designed to guide spacecraft during lunar descent—is slated for its next flight aboard Astrobotic’s first Griffin lander, with a launch targeted for late 2026, according to AIAA.
NASA Laser Navigation Tool Eyes 2026 Lunar Flight After Successful Demo
The upcoming mission follows the device’s first in-space demonstration in early 2024, during which the tool exceeded preflight expectations
and yielded high measurement accuracy and flight validation
of velocity and altitude, according to a NASA paper published in AIAA’s Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.
Our Doppler lidar worked perfectly. It was just beautiful watching such great quality measurements,
said Farzin Amzajerdian, a senior scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center who began developing the technology roughly 20 years ago.
Background and 2024 Lunar Touchdown Attempt
During its initial 2024 test, the NDL device served as a backup navigation system for the Intuitive Machines lander, named Odysseus, which touched down on the moon in February 2024 as part of the company’s inaugural mission under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Although Odysseus completed a soft landing, it tipped over shortly after.
Before landing, flight controllers discovered that some of the lander’s navigation sensors were malfunctioning and attempted to pull data from the NDL unit. However, a software problem prevented the lander from utilizing that data during the descent.
I think it was the following Monday that they realized that the lander was on its side. And then when they looked carefully, they saw we didn’t use the NDL data,
Amzajerdian said, noting that a successful connection might have enabled a fully successful landing.
Despite the software hurdle, researchers confirmed that terrain features such as craters were accurately observed in the device’s data and matched against digital elevation maps. The results showed agreement between the lidar and modeled measurements to within approximately 5 meters and 0.5 meters per second.
Development History and Technological Advantages
The NDL technology was named NASA’s Invention of the Year in 2022. The project’s roots trace back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Amzajerdian sought alternatives to traditional radar during attempts to land rovers on Mars. Because radar radio waves cover wide surface areas, smaller boulders and craters could hide from detection and present unexpected hazards.
By utilizing lidar—which uses laser pulses to measure distance and Doppler shifts—scientists can gauge whether the distance between an object and the sensor is growing or diminishing. On the moon, the extremely thin atmosphere ensures that clouds and vapor will not interfere with the lidar beams. Furthermore, lidar performance can potentially reduce mission costs by integrating more easily into vehicles compared to radar systems.
Commercial Growth and Future Lunar Plans
The 2024 demonstration has since spurred commercial interest. Intuitive Machines noted that the success inspired various vendors to commercialize similar sensors or develop alternate laser measurement devices. NASA previously licensed the NDL technology in 2016 to Psionic, a Virginia-based company that has worked on lighter and smaller versions of the tool. Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines is designing its own LUNA laser navigation payload to fly on the company’s IM-4 mission scheduled for next year.
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