A Comprehensive Look at the "Test Like You Fly" Approach to the Griffin Mission One GNC System

The guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system used on Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One (GM1) during descent and landing (D&L) consists of multiple sensors and engines controlling a semi-rigid body using in-house developed embedded software. Multiple components of this system are cutting-edge, ranging from the Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) for GPS-denied pose estimation, Navigation Doppler LiDAR (NDL) for 3D altimetry and velocimetry, and Hazard Detection LiDAR (HDL) for safe landing site selection, to convex optimization formulations for real-time guidance, each of which specify or satisfy constraints associated with the D&L concept of operations. Astrobotic heavily leverages the “test like you fly” approach to verifying the end-to-end GNC system, using multiple test platforms to ensure that the system in its actual environment will perform as expected. This paper details GM1’s concept of operations, the verification and validation flow of GNC’s D&L system via Astrobotic’s integrated test platforms, and test examples that highlight this process.