Draper has developed a leading vision navigation solution the draper multi-environment navigator (dmen)

The development of dmen funded by a number of agencies including the U.S. Army DARPA and NASA has shown a high degree of success operating in relevant environments including guided precision parachute delivery high-speed near-ground UAV flight and mock ISS capsules. Dmen is currently performing a high-altitude balloon campaign funded by the flight opportunities program with the stated goal of pushing dmen and its associated algorithms and software further towards becoming a viable entry descent and landing (EDL) navigation platform. Under topic 1 of the current solicitation specifically the sub-topic descent and landing technologies that increase access to the lunar surface including those with extensibility to mars entry descent and landing (EDL) draper proposes to follow on to the first dmen campaign by proposing a suborbital rocket test campaign bringing dmen to higher altitudes and faster velocities that are more representative of lunar descent trajectory. As draper is a prime contractor for the clps program this test campaign has the potential to feed directly into future NASA lunar exploration.