NASA has demonstrated a new way for satellites to navigate without GPS by using the objects around them as landmarks in space.

NASA’s Starling mission has reached another milestone in spacecraft autonomy with a new system that can determine a satellite’s position by using other objects in space as reference points rather than depending on a traditional navigation network.

The FALCON (Fast Autonomous Lost-in-space Catalog-based Optical Navigation) technology demonstration represents another step toward spacecraft that can operate with greater independence. As NASA prepares for more missions beyond Earth’s orbit, systems such as FALCON could support lunar satellite swarms, distributed science missions, and future human exploration.