The Astronautics and Space Technology Division (ASTD) in the Viterbi School of Engineering, in partnership with the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), have embarked on a novel teaching technique using “hands on” training in dynamic free flight tests for space technology students.  The student Lunar Lander course project (also called “LEAPFROG” - Lunar Entry and Approach Platform For Research On Ground)  started in 2006 as a design-to-flight course.  The project is developing a lunar prototype vehicle that can fly repeated times over the course of a single day in free flight to simulate a lunar descent and landing sequence.  The vehicle has active onboard guidance, navigation and attitude control, and the “hover” propulsion is supplied by a 50lbf aircraft jet engine.  The concept was inspired by the LLRV NASA Program that was used to train the Apollo astronauts at Dryden Research Center, and by the flight test program at the National Hover Test Facility at Edwards Air Force Base.  The ultimate goal of the course project is to provide an actual flight platform for today’s national lunar landing missions to test early prototypes of key landing subsystems through a similar profile, and in similar surface and lighting conditions that are experienced on the moon, on a low cost flight platform.  The Lunar Lander-LEAPFROG is a platform which provides today’s students hands-on flight test training and design implementation for the next generation of lunar spacecraft. The project was specifically identified and invited by the space community to participate in the X-Prize competition (no other university was!), a major international competition (with  $1.5M prize from the International X-Prize Foundation) where the student project is going up against other industrial competitors at a professional level of skill and experience! The Faculty Advisor for the Lunar Lander Project is Professor Joseph Kunc, and the Project’s Technical Advisor is David Barnhart of ISI, who has almost twenty years of direct spacecraft and space mission management experience.

Lunar Lander Test