Abstract:The two booms of lunar/Mars exploration in the 1960s to 1970s and the 21st century have produced fruitful results. Now a new batch of missions, represented by the Artemis Program, the fourth phase of China’s Lunar Exploration Program and the Mars sample return, has been launched. At this historical juncture, the development of lunar/Mars landing guidance is reviewed. Firstly, the physical process of the lunar/Mars landing is described, and the challenges of future guidance technology are analyzed. Secondly, considering the extensive progress in the technology branch of trajectory optimization, its relation with guidance is discussed. Subsequently, the technological legacies of engineering missions are reviewed, including polynomial guidance, powered explicit guidance, Apollo entry guidance, predictor-corrector guidance and convex programming guidance. Given the increasing challenges of dynamical and environmental uncertainties, potential tools from the fields of artificial intelligence, advanced optimization and control are discussed, which can provide new motivation for guidance technology development. Finally, aiming at the requirements of anytime and anywhere, high-precision, high-reliability and high-autonomy landing, subsequent research focuses are summarized.