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Space missions benefit greatly by the capability of the on-board GNC system to adapt rapidly to unknown environment. Autonomous vision-based navigation is a particular technology under implementation in several ESA missions. One of the most interesting applications in that field is the proximity operations around a small asteroid, like those in HERA.
The goal of this activity was to develop a navigation algorithm with the capability to fly over an unknown terrain and achieve better navigation performances than current vision-based techniques based on unknown feature tracking.

Previous ESA Studies, such as the LUNA study 'Artificial Analogue Concepts for Preparing Robotics and Human Exploration on the Moon' identified gaps in European infrastructures to simulate surface operations with lunar soil (simulant) in a vacuum. There exist several vacuum chambers or terrain models such as the coming EAC LUNA facility which can be used for testing equipment either in a vacuum or on a simulated lunar terrain, but not both.

The main objectives of this study were:
- To carry out thorough analysis and modeling of the anomalous gravity fields expected from lunar lava tubes and other types of void spaces, of various sizes and depths. This work was carried out by geoscientists from Queen’s University.
- To define the mission and system-level requirements for this exploration mission, derived from the scientific analysis of those expected gravity signals, and specifying feasible mission and system-level designs, for a mission to scout the Marius Hills pit crater.

The DAEDALUS mission concept aims to explore and characterise the entrance and initial part of lunar lava tubes within a compact, tightly integrated spherical robotic device, with a complementary payload set and autonomous capabilities. The mission concept specifically addresses the identification and characterisation of potential resources for future ESA exploration, the local environment of the Moon's subsurface and its geologic and compositional structure.