Title:
Simulation and Analysis of Navigation Performance for Cislunar
PNT Constellations
Simulation and Analysis of Navigation Performance for Cislunar
PNT Constellations
Author(s)
Hartigan, Mark
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Abstract
Cislunar space currently lacks the navigation infrastructure from which Earth-centric space
missions benefit – e.g. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The Deep Space Network
is often used, but in recent years has become saturated with missions and scheduling time is
becoming increasingly infeasible. Governments and national agencies such as the White House
and NASA have identified a need for a scalable and interoperable positioning, navigation, timing,
and communications (PNTC) service in cislunar space to support growing scientific interest and
plans for a sustained human presence on the surface. This paper explores potential navigation
methodologies and analytically determines achievable accuracy for such a system; navigation
simulations are also conducted for example users on the lunar south pole – such as a ground
station and lunar rover – to compare several different low-infrastructure constellation designs.
Sufficient coverage of the south pole to yield navigation performance in the tens of meters is
achieved for these users with as little as a four-satellite constellation
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Date Issued
2023-05-01
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Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Masters Project
Rights Statement
Unless otherwise noted, all materials are protected under U.S. Copyright Law and all rights are reserved