An organization that helped astronauts navigate their way to the moon has turned its focus to the red planet of Mars.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Draper announced this week that its Houston office has been given another five-year contract to help NASA develop guidance, navigation and control technologies for the Orion spacecraft under development. NASA hopes to use that vehicle to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s.

The up to $38 million contract is relatively small for the nonprofit, which has 20 people in Houston and roughly 1,400 employees overall. But NASA created an important launchpad for Draper, which spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, and Orion remains one of its most visible projects.

"The work that was done during Apollo was very significant in ensuring Draper's success as a company overall," said Rick Loffi, head of the Houston office.

Guidance, navigation and control for Orion is being developed as a joint project between NASA and Lockheed Martin. Traditionally, NASA has overseen this development alone. It added Lockheed as a partner to increase cost efficiency and take advantage of broader expertise.

"We're using the best assets available across this partnership to help develop this system as efficiently as possible," said Jim Geffre, NASA's vehicle systems performance and analysis manager for Orion.

Lockheed and NASA are both hiring contractors, and Draper is a NASA contractor.

"They really have a unique and world-class expertise in guidance and navigation technology," Geffre said of Draper.

As Loffi explained it, navigation is the spacecraft's ability to know its position and velocity in space. Guidance is its ability to create a route from one location to another, and control is its ability to follow that guidance path.

Draper's guidance and navigation algorithms were used with Orion's maiden flight test in late 2014. The unmanned spacecraft orbited Earth twice and reached an altitude of 3,600 miles, which is 15 times higher than the International Space Station.

Orion's next unmanned flight test is scheduled for 2018. Called Exploration Mission-1, it will last about 25 days and Orion will make a large orbit around the moon.

The upcoming flight test will require more sophisticated algorithms than the first test as Orion will travel farther from Earth and can't rely on GPS. It will also be gone for a longer period of time, which can cause navigational instruments to become less accurate.

Such complications will only increase on Orion's journey to Mars. Loffi believes a navigation system using optical cameras can help solve some of the challenges.

Landing, for instance, isn't very accurate with current navigation systems. Optical cameras can help by recognizing landmarks to improve landing accuracy, which he said will be essential for getting astronauts to habitats created on Mars.

Current navigation systems determine the spacecraft's position with GPS or through large antennas on Earth. Loffi said manned spacecraft won't want to rely on these earthbound technologies because the astronauts could lose communication and not be able to return home.

Optical cameras may be able to recognize nearby stars and planets to help navigate and guide the spacecraft.

"It's very desirable, maybe even required, that a spacecraft be able to autonomously know its own position without relying on the earth," Loffi said.

Another challenge, Geffre said, is hardening navigation equipment against the heavier radiation found in deep space.

He said Draper is a critical part of the guidance, navigation and control team, particularly with software used to help Orion re-enter Earth's atmosphere. Draper also helps develop flight software and test the various software and hardware technologies to make sure the system works.

Geffre also said he believes the guidance, navigation and control development is on track to meet the timelines for the asteroid and Mars.