Cislunar Navigation

OUSD (R&E) CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Integrated Network Systems-of-Systems; Trusted AI and Autonomy The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. OBJECTIVE: Conceptualize, design, and develop technical approaches for accurate and resilient navigation solutions to cislunar satellite constellations in support of both Department of Defense (DoD) and/or civil and commercial activities. Realize a proof of concept ensuring reliability, redundancy and robustness and relax mission constraints concerning navigation and communication capabilities as well Size, Weight, and Power and Cost (SWaP-C). Aligned with TN#338 Cislunar PNT. DESCRIPTION: Cislunar space is 1,728 times larger than the volume of space within 1 GEO. To operate effectively in a cislunar environment, there is a critical need for a GPS comparable navigation system for spacecraft in cislunar space to identify their exact position. Specifically, any cislunar navigation system should focus on providing navigation improvements on the Moon South Pole to allow first landings and ascending operations and ensure a good coverage for surface operation in that region. Some design tenets of cislunar navigation systems must operate in unstable families of non-planar and non-ellipses. Emerging cislunar navigation technologies need to address operational challenges of large scales of space and time involved in traditional two-way ranging with ground stations on earth, advanced timekeeping and time transfer in a cislunar environment, in addition of the confluence of terrestrial, lunar, and solar gravitational fields. Therefore, the challenge for this topic solicitation is to develop an onboard navigation system that is in support of DoD missions for rapid deployment anywhere and anytime, designed to work with much weaker signals, reduced geometric diversity and limited signal availability from the Earth's Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) or ranging with ground stations. Investigations conducted will include: i) new concepts and algorithms to take advantage of the availability of multi-constellation, multi-frequency and multi-signal GNSS; ii) use of less expensive onboard clocks by reducing the need for time stability between GNSS signal measurements and X-ray pulsar detectors; and iii) advanced filtering and data fusion, improved space and surface location algorithms. Metrics that will be assessed include position and time accuracy, availability of service (analyzed across cislunar space), bandwidth usage, SWaP-C, and complexity associated with system initialization and overall set up time. PHASE I: Develop scalable mission architectures, leading to the potential for standardization of a cislunar satellite navigation system and technology. Determine requirements on feasibility of delivering positioning, navigation, and timing services efficiently and effectively in the presence of inherent challenges of observability diversity, measurement noise effects, importance of force models of ever-changing gravitational environments, and relative importance and influence of different inter-satellite links available in each scenario. Conduct necessary trade studies, modeling, and simulation that will contribute to the development of new operations concepts with reduced ground interactions. PHASE II: Design a proof-of-concept that is capable of supporting a multi-node architecture for nanosecond-level or better time transfers with realistic clock errors and time synchronization challenges towards providing transformational performance to special users. Evaluate operational robustness for spacecraft navigation due to the redundant use of multiple independent GNSS signals and an increase in the number of observables directly available in cislunar environment. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Integrate with prospective follow-on transition partners. The contractor will transition the solution to provide improved operational capability to a broad range of potential Government and civilian users and alternate mission applications required precise relative positioning and autonomous cislunar, agile proximity operations. REFERENCES: 1. 1. Siamak G Hesar, Jeffrey S Parker, Jason M Leonard, Ryan M McGranaghan, and George H Born, Lunar far side surface navigation using linked autonomous interplanetary satellite orbit navigation (LiAISON) . In Acta Astronautica 117, pp. 116 129, 2015; 2. 2. NASA. Past, present and future Moon Missions. Dec. 2020. URL: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/moonpage.html. KEYWORDS: Cislunar satellite navigation; positioning, navigation, and timing services; observability diversity; measurement noise effects; force models; gravitational fields