<p>Every one of the future exploration architectures being considered by NASA have, at their core, the need to rendezvous and dock with other vehicles or bodies.&nbsp; Future manned vehicles need to be able to do so with both cooperative and uncooperative vehicles and objects.&nbsp; To this end, the sensors being considered are all optical-based.&nbsp; In fact, passive sensors, such as IR cameras and visual cameras, are at the heart of any exploration architecture.&nbsp; There is a need for the onboard systems to be able to use the images provided by these sensors to rendezvous and dock/capture these objects.&nbsp; Therefore, this project will develop this capability to operate around a variety of objects, without a priori knowledge of their geometry.&nbsp; In particular, a technology called &lsquo;optical flow&rsquo; or &lsquo;visual odometry&rsquo; (VO), will be harnessed to develop a robust on-board capability using passive sensors; of course, if active sensors are available, they will be used as well. In fact, we will also apply this technique to navigating around a cratered object (such as an asteroid). This project will enhance the Agency&rsquo;s ability to operate at distant locations, without the need for ground intervention.</p><p>To date, all of the on-board navigation development performed has focused on either Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or Low Lunar Orbit (LLO).&nbsp; We seek to advance deep-space navigation technology by focusing this Internal Research and Development (IRAD) upon rendezvous and navigation in a weak gravity environment, either at Lagrangian point 2 (L2) or around an asteroid.&nbsp; Of course, this will apply to any destinations that have a strong gravity field as well.&nbsp; As well, the technology developed in this Internal Research and Development will apply to rendezvousing with vehicles such as ISS.&nbsp; We choose to focus our IRAD effort on the navigation algorithms and software for the ARCM DRO Mission, thus broadening our scope, maintaining our cutting-edge capability, and advancing US manned space exploration.&nbsp; The goal is to be flexible enough to meet the needs of the NASA vision, as it applies to any destination the Agency chooses to embark upon.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>