# COBALT Flight Demonstrations Fuse Technologies (AFRC-2017-11432-1 COBALT FlightTests)

This 5-minute, 50-second video shows how the CoOperative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technologies (COBALT) system pairs new landing sensor technologies that promise to yield the highest precision navigation solution ever tested for NASA space landing applications. The technologies included a navigation doppler lidar (NDL), which provides ultra-precise velocity and line-of-sight range measurements, and the Lander Vision System (LVS), which provides terrain-relative navigation. Through flight campaigns conducted in March and April 2017 aboard Masten Space Systems' Xodiac, a rocket-powered vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) platform, the COBALT system was flight tested to collect sensor performance data for NDL and LVS and to check the integration and communication between COBALT and the rocket. The flight tests provided excellent performance data for both sensors, as well as valuable information on the integrated performance with the rocket that will be used for subsequent COBALT modifications prior to follow-on flight tests. Based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA, the Flight Opportunities program funds technology development flight tests on commercial suborbital space providers of which Masten is a vendor. The program has previously tested the LVS on the Masten rocket and validated the technology for the Mars 2020 rover.

- Kind: Short
- Year: 2017
- Runtime: 5 min
- By: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
- Genres: Science, Space
- Archive: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COBALT_Flight_Demonstrations_Fuse_Technologies_(AFRC-2017-11432-1_COBALT_FlightTests).webm)
- Licence or status: Public domain (as the archive states it)
- Credit: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/commons/148185302?play=1)