The SPLICE Project: Safe and Precise Landing Technology Development and Testing
Ronald R. Sostaric, Sam Pedrotty, John M. Carson, Jay Estes, Farzin Amzajerdian, Alicia M. Dwyer-Cianciolo, J. B. Blair
Abstract
View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-0256.vid The Safe and Precise Landing—Integrated Capability Evolution (SPLICE) Project’s suite of technologies provides a spacecraft with Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance (PL&HA) capabilities for conducting precise and safe landing. SPLICE has been a focal PL&HA project since 2017 within the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) Program and has funding planned through 2024. STMD/GCD has pursued SPLICE as a technology push to enable PL&HA capabilities for human and robotic lander missions to the Moon, with extensibility to Mars, icy moons, ocean worlds, and other solid-surface solar system destinations. PL&HA technologies are prioritized within NASA Technology Roadmaps, the Artemis roadmap, and the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Systems Capability Leadership Team (SCLT) technology development plan. SPLICE has multiple active partnerships, including funded efforts to demonstrate PL&HA technologies on terrestrial suborbital rocket flights and planned infusion to lunar spaceflight missions. This paper describes the SPLICE technologies in development, maturation progress, and recent suborbital rocket flight testing.