THIS PROPOSAL AIMS TO DEVELOP TEST AND IMPLEMENT THE NECESSARY THEORIES AND ALGORITHMS FOR INSPECTION GEOMETRIC RECONSTRUCTION AND TRACKING OF A SMALL CELESTIAL BODY (E.G. ASTEROID) IN SPACE USING DIFFERENT SENSOR MODALITIES INCLUDING BOTH PASSIVE SENSORS (VISUAL LIGHT AND INFRARED CAMERAS) AND TIME-OF-FLIGHT (TOF) 3D ACTIVE SENSORS SUCH AS FLASH-LIDARS. TRACKING HERE REFERS TO THE SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF BOTH THE TARGET OBJECT S SIX-DIMENSIONAL POSE WITH RESPECT TO THE OBSERVER SATELLITE AS WELL AS ITS THREE-DIMENSIONAL GEOMETRIC SHAPE. THIS IS A PROBLEM THAT IS WIDELY KNOWN AS SLAM (SIMULTANEOUS LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING) IN THE GROUND ROBOTICS FIELD OR SFM (STRUCTURE FROM MOTION) IN THE COMPUTER VISION COMMUNITY. HOWEVER TRADITIONALSLAM/SFM ALGORITHMS DEVELOPED FOR GROUND ROBOTS NEED TO BE MODIFIED IN ORDER TO ADDRESS THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED IN SPACE (E.G. ILLUMINATION CONDITIONS ABSENCE OF BACKGROUND INERTIAL FEATURE POINTS) AS WELL AS SPACECRAFT ONBOARD RESTRICTIONS (LIMITED POWER FUEL AND COMPUTATIONAL RESOURCES). NO PRIOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE TARGET OBJECT MEANS THAT NO RELIABLE PRE-EXISTING INFORMATION ABOUT THE SHAPE MASS PROPERTIES (INERTIA MATRIX CENTER OF MASS) OR APPEARANCE IS ASSUMED AND NO PRE-EXISTING RECOGNIZABLE REFERENCE MARKERS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE TARGET CELESTIAL OBJECT. SENSOR FUSION USING FACTOR GRAPHS WILL PROVIDE RELIABLE AND ROBUST ESTIMATION USING BOTH VISIBLE AND TIR CAMERAS. WHILE VISIBLE CAMERAS ARE SUBJECT TO LIGHTING CONDITIONS AND GEOMETRY TIR CAMERAS ARE LARGELY INSENSITIVE TO LIGHTING CONDITION CHANGES (E.G. DURING ECLIPSE) WHILE TOF SENSORS CAN PROVIDE ADDITIONAL DEPTH INFORMATION TO DISAMBIGUATE SCALE ON THE IMAGE. A SECONDARY OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO DEVELOP PATH PLANNING AND CONTROL ALGORITHMS THAT COUPLED WITH THE SLAM ESTIMATION OUTPUT WILL LEAD TO ACCURATE AND ROBUST MANEUVERING IN THE VICINITY OF THE ASTEROID. THE TECHNIQUES AND ALGORITHMS TO BE DEVELOPED IN THIS RESEARCH WILL THEREFORE ALLOW: A) THE ESTIMATION OF THE SPACECRAFT POSE AND THE SMALL-BODY DYNAMICAL PARAMETERS; B) TERRAIN-RELATIVE SIMULTANEOUS LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING WITH CAMERA AND/OR LIDAR DATA; C) COLLISION DETECTION AND AVOIDANCE. THE PROPOSED ALGORITHMS WILL ADVANCE THE STATE-OF-THE-ART IN AUTONOMOUS SMALL BODY NAVIGATION AND MANEUVERING FOR A BROAD CLASS OF FUTURE SMALL CELESTIAL BODY MISSIONS INCLUDING REMOTE CHARACTERIZATION SAMPLE RETURN RESOURCE UTILIZATION ETC. DUE TO THEIR SMALL SIZE IRREGULAR SHAPE AND VARIABLE SURFACE PROPERTIES OF ASTEROIDS AND DISTANCE FROM EARTH IT IS CRITICAL TO ENSURE ACCURATE NAVIGATION TO ENABLE SAFE AND PRECISE LANDING OF THE SPACECRAFT ON ITS OWN. THE PROPOSED WORK FALLS UNDER NASA S TECHNOLOGY AREA TA04 (ROBOTICS TELEROBOTICS AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS) AND WILL DIRECTLY SUPPORT TOPIC 2 (RELATIVE NAVIGATION ALGORITHMS AND SENSORS FOR AUTONOMOUS MANEUVERING IN PROXIMITY TO SMALL CELESTIAL BODIES) OF THE EARLY STAGE INNOVATION PROGRAM. SPECIFICALLY THE ANTICIPATED RESULTS WILL ENABLE THE IN SITU CHARACTERIZATION OF A SMALL BODY AND ASSOCIATED FLIGHT ENVIRONMENT NAMELY ITS TOPOGRAPHIC MAPPING (SHAPE GEOMETRY AND SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS). THE THEORETICAL TECHNIQUES TO BE UTILIZED ARE AT MAXIMUM TRL 2. BY THE END OF THE PROJECT WE EXPECT TO HAVE DOCUMENTED AND DEMONSTRATED ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS THAT VALIDATE THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE PROPOSED APPROACH. THIS WILL SATISFY THE EXIT CRITERIA OF TRL 3 AS THEY ARE DESCRIBED IN NPR 7123.1B APPENDIX E THUS PLACING THE TECHNOLOGY AT THAT LEVEL OF READINESS.