Ripped ground pad on DFRobot SEN0388 infrared laser sensor

Hey everyone, working on a laser-based length measurement project and ran into a problem — we accidentally ripped off the ground pad on our DFRobot SEN0388 LIDAR/infrared laser sensor during disassembly/mounting.

Here's the situation:

• The ground pad trace is completely lifted off the PCB.
• There's what appears to be a via or a small exposed contact point nearby on the board (circled in our photo) that we believe connects to ground. We've been temporarily using tape to press a wire against it, which works but obviously isn't reliable.
• The sensor does have 4 mounting holes on the bottom with what seem to be ground connections, but soldering to those would cause the sensor to sit unevenly on our mount — and since it's a distance measurement device, alignment is critical for accuracy.
• We're hesitant to solder to the circled contact because we're not 100% sure what component it's attached to and don't want to damage it with heat.

Questions:

1. Is it safe to solder to that via/exposed pad if we confirm it's ground (e.g. with a multimeter continuity test back to the original GND pin)? Any tips on doing it without heat-damaging the nearby component?

2. Is conductive epoxy a viable alternative here to avoid soldering heat entirely? Any specific product recommendations?

3. Any other approach we might be missing to re-establish a solid, permanent ground connection on a lifted pad?

We have access to a multimeter, soldering iron, and basic tools. Happy to share more photos if it helps. Thanks in advance!