Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

For you future moonwalkers, you may be wearing a knapsack that provides precise navigation capabilities on the Moon.

NASA’s Kinematic Navigation and Cartography Knapsack (KNaCK) Instrument project is designed to overcome the lack of global positioning and navigation systems on a person’s lunar outings.

KNaCK is to support missions that are part of NASA’s Artemis program, particularly at the Moon’s South Pole. In that region the low solar incidence means that the sun never appears more than three degrees above the horizon.

In this multi-temporal illumination map of the lunar south pole, Shackleton crater (19 km diameter) is in the center, the south pole is located approximately at 9 o’clock on its rim. The map was created from images from the camera aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

LiDAR-based

As a LiDAR-based (Light Detection and Ranging) mobile terrain-mapping and navigation system, the concept is using Aeva Technologies, Inc.’s 4D LiDAR technology. Based in Mountain View, California, Aeva’s technology, including the new Aeries™ II sensor, is expected to enable the KNaCK Instrument to create highly accurate maps of the lunar surface and provide precise navigation capabilities to conquer the lack of GPS guidance on the Moon.

“The KNaCK sensor is a surveying tool for both navigation and science mapping, able to create ultra-high-resolution 3D maps at centimeter-level precision,” said Michael Zanetti, KNaCK Project Manager and Principal Investigator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in a NASA release.

Credit: Michael Zanetti/NASA

GPS-denied environment

A next-generation space-hardened unit will be about the size of a soda can and could enable lunar surface operations like never before. “It also will help ensure the safety of astronauts and rover vehicles in a GPS-denied environment such as the Moon,” Zanetti said, “identifying actual distances to far-off landmarks and showing explorers in real time how far they’ve come and how far is left to go to reach their destination.”

The lunar south pole region also has areas that are permanently shadowed or have long persistent shadows that prohibit photogrammetry-based navigation. Aeva’s Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave technology is immune to optical interference from the sun and can operate in the dark, allowing astronauts and rovers to use the KNaCK Instrument to explore and map the lunar surface anytime, day or night.

Credit: NASA

According to a Aeva statement, beyond the benefits of mapping and navigation, Aeva’s high-resolution sensor data can also be used to create high-definition terrain maps, useful for landing site visualizations. The KNaCK project is also exploring additional applications that leverage Aeva’s instant velocity-sensing capabilities to detect airborne particulates, such as the way rocket plume exhaust interacts with lunar and planetary surfaces and for measuring small scale atmospheric phenomena like dust devils.

Field testing

NASA’s Zanetti said he envisions mounting KNaCK on a rover or on the side of an astronaut’s helmet – which should leave plenty of room in future lunar mountaineers’ all-purpose backpacks.

The KNaCK team will work to miniaturize the hardware – the backpack prototype weighs about 40 pounds – and harden the sensitive electronics against the punishing effects of microgravity and solar radiation.

The hardware is set to be evaluated in another major field test in late April at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) in Kilbourne Hole, New Mexico.