In Elite Dangerous, Nav Beacons scan automatically once you’re targeting the actual beacon and are close enough.
Basic steps
- In supercruise, open your left-hand Navigation panel and select the system’s “Nav Beacon” as your destination, then fly toward it and drop when you get “Safe Disengage Ready.”
- Once you’ve dropped, look at your Contacts panel and target the “Navigation Beacon” object (not just the big “Nav Beacon” location marker); on your radar it appears as a white/grey rectangle.
- Face the beacon and approach until you are within a few kilometers; hold your aim on it and the ship will begin an automatic scan that takes a few seconds, confirmed by an on-screen message and audio cue.
Common gotchas
- If “nothing happens,” you are probably still targeting the supercruise marker instead of the physical beacon; always re-target it from the Contacts tab after you drop.
- No special modules are needed; if you are close, pointing at it, and it is targeted, the scan will just run on its own.
- After a successful scan, the system map and your navigation will update with all signal sources and unexplored locations in that system, which is especially useful for missions like finding black boxes.