Case Study: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center achieves precise Hubble rendezvous validation with Hexagon laser tracking solutions

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Customer Case Study

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center needed to validate sensor technologies for a future mission to safely de-orbit the Hubble Space Telescope. This required a highly accurate method to track the dynamic motion of a docking fixture, simulating a rendezvous in space, to ensure a future vehicle could autonomously align and attach to it. Hexagon's Leica laser tracking system and T-Probe were used to provide the precise "truth data" for this critical testing.

Hexagon's solution provided the high-precision, six-degrees-of-freedom measurement data needed to validate the performance of the three prototype sensor systems. The Leica laser tracker and mounted T-Probe captured dynamic motion data as a robot moved the fixture, giving NASA engineers a reliable benchmark to compare against the other sensors. This allowed the team to conclusively determine sensor accuracy and performance, providing the confidence and foundational data required to advance the planning for Hubble's final mission.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Bo Naasz

Aerospace Engineer