Lunar navigation systems are needed for future Moon missions to enable rover navigation, mining, construction, human exploration, and autonomous operations. Lunar construction requires centimeter-scale position accuracy not typically found in previous lunar navigation solutions. The need for high accuracy and affordable cost provides competing demands for solution developers. Orbit determination of satellites and resident space objects often involves observations from a benchmarked surface position to establish an orbiting body’s ephemeris. In our concept, we reverse this process to determine surface location from range and range-rate measurements of an orbiting body with a known ephemeris. In 2020, we developed a point design to study the feasibility of the approach. Here we show that we can close the link for the point design. By allocating the system complexity between the lunar surface and orbit segments we can achieve an affordable and capable lunar navigation solution.
Reverse-Ephemeris Lunar Navigation for NASA and Commercial Exploration
19th Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments ; 2024 ; Miami, Florida
Earth and Space 2024 ; 188-194
10.10.2024
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
NTRS | 1973
|NASA Lunar Communication and Navigation Architecture
AIAA | 2008
|NASA Lunar Robotics for Science and Exploration
NTIS | 2008
|NTRS | 1967
|