Orion Optical Navigation Progress Toward Exploration Mission 1

Optical navigation of human spacecraft was proposed on Gemini and implemented successfully on Apollo as a means of autonomously operating the vehicle in the event of lost communication with controllers on Earth. It shares a history with the method of lunar distances that was used in the 18th century and gained some notoriety after its use by Captain James Cook during his 1768 Pacific voyage of the HMS Endeavor. The Orion emergency return system...