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[Mars 2020: Terrain Relative Navigation]
>> We are in Death Valley,
testing Terrain Relative Navigation,
the new technology for Mars 2020.
The terrain in Death Valley is very much like Mars.
It has a lot of sand dunes and steep slopes.
It's quite similar to the landing site
that Mars 2020 will be going to.
We're taking a copy of the system
that will be on the spacecraft and we're testing it
in the way that it would
be used during the flight mission.
>> Terrain Relative Navigation gives the vehicle the ability
to figure out where it is.
This is kind of along those same lines
as what the Apollo astronauts did with people in the loop,
back in the day.
Those guys were looking out the window
and looking for different craters
and other features on the moon
that they knew of
from the maps we had in the moon.
So, that way they could figure out where they are
and figure out where they needed to land to be safe.
So, for the first time here on Mars,
we're automating that.
>> Andrew: What Terrain Relative Navigation gives you
is the ability to avoid hazards
that you already know about.
So, large hazards.
Hills, craters, things that you've seen before.
With the camera we take images as we're descending
and we match pieces of the image to orbital imagery
that we have stored onboard.
And if we make many of these matches,
we are able to figure out where we are relative to the map.
>> If we didn't have Terrain Relative Navigation,
the probability of landing safely at Jezero Crater
is about 80 to 85%.
But with Mars 2020, we can actually bring that probability
of success of landing safely at Jezero Crater all the way up to
99% safe every single time.
>> We don't have an astronaut that we can put
onboard Mars 2020.
But we can put this system,
this Terrain Relative Navigation system,
so that the spacecraft could figure it out on its own.
>> [Andrew] I could see it being used on lunar missions,
science missions, as well as human missions,
future Mars missions, of course, Mars sample return,
Europa lander, landing on a comet,
pretty much everywhere you wanna land,
you're gonna want to have Terrain Relative Navigation.
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[EXPLORE / NASA]