Design, Development, and Use of a Lunar Lander Simulation for NASA’s Artemis Program

This paper describes the design, development, and initial use of a generalized and configurable lunar lander simulation to support NASA’s Artemis Program. This simulation is being developed for the Crew Compartment Office (CrewCo) in the Human Landing Systems (HLS) program and is called the HLS CrewCo Lander Simulation (HCLS). The HCLS provides insight into the challenges associated with returning humans to the Moon and the particular difficulties of operating at the Lunar South Pole. A generalized lunar landing spacecraft based on a government reference design has been modeled but the simulation can be modified and adapted to model vendor designs as well. The simulation architecture and toolsets provide a flexible framework that allows for quickly prototyping and evaluating various aspects of a piloted lunar landing system. This includes the modeling of all principal human controlled flight phases: rendezvous and docking with crew transfer systems; docked orbital outpost operations; undocking and lunar transfer; lunar orbital operations; lunar deorbit, descent, and landing (DDL); lunar surface operations; lunar ascent; and return to the orbital outpost. The flexibility of the simulation allows for the integrated evaluation of potential vehicle subsystems, crew displays, guidance and control modes, and trajectory designs. The purpose of the HCLS is not to design the ideal lunar lander, but rather to understand the strengths and weaknesses of vehicle design choices.