Visual Navigation Precision Guidance

Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong visually guided its landing, avoiding a boulder field. Perseverance autonomously did the same, landing about 35 meters to the left of the "bullseye" above. Both were critical needs to achieving mission success.

But with each of these there was a "follow-on" that made these victories especially poignant for NASA and the world. For Apollo it meant a string of missions where skills and capabilities were increased alongside mission risk each time. For "Percy", it meant that a mission spanning a decade of Mars Sample Return, which requires precision landings to the same location, could proceed, again with subsequent increased capabilities, risk, and vehicle coordination. The samples Percy collects will be collected up by a trailing, high speed collection rover, and launched into orbit, where another satellite will spot them in orbit, capture them, depart for Earth, and send them in another return vehicle to land on the Earth.

These, and an upcoming Ingenuity helicopter will also rely on visual guidance in part to succeed. Vision systems, which in the 1980's were considered bleeding edge technology, have advanced to mission critical stage. (We're not yet to the consumer stage, as the over-hyped "Level 5" autonomous vehicle systems for automotive use and quarterly tragedies with accidents show us.)

That NASA can capture Neil's skill and apply it in five decades to what may become routine unmanned vehicle operations elsewhere in the solar system is a major accomplishment.

And that vision systems have become a mainstay of our culture, only to improve from this point forward.