Field tests using dead reckoning and monoptic video for remote lunar surface navigation
Field tests of simulated remote navigation control system for lunar surface vehicle
Broussard, P. H., Jr.↗
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Interoperable Services to Mitigate Lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing Challenges
Across the Earth, both civilian and government endeavors enjoy a built-in reliance on a position, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure to which they are largely blind. Whether walking, driving, flying, or orbiting, Earth-centric PNT systems that have evolved over decades provide a core functionality to which we have grown accustomed for these pursuits. As NASA joins with other government space agencies and commercial partners to return humans to the Moon in a sustained manner within the current decade, expectations for PNT knowledge and timeliness at the Moon rival those on Earth. The need exists to develop a viable lunar-centric PNT infrastructure to support the planned human and robotic exploits. Navigating within the influence of the Moon presents its own set of challenges. Identification, understanding, and use of a unified reference frame and time system on which navigation is based becomes a fundamental need at the Moon. In addition to the unified foundational elements, measurement liability, dynamic conditions that require Earth-independent autonomous operations, and standards for PNT signals and message-based data exchange each represent distinct challenges to navigation in a burgeoning operational lunar environment. The PNT services planned as part of the lunar communications and navigation relay architecture known as LunaNet aid in surmounting the challenges. LunaNet interoperability specifications stipulate standards for signal parameters, messages, and lunar reference systems for PNT services. Within LunaNet’s defined interoperability resides the concept of a Reference Signal to provide communication signals specifically structured to enable measurement of pseudorange, Doppler, and time transfer by the recipient. One such signal type, the Augmented Forward Signal (AFS), functions as the mainstay for LunaNet PNT, while also serving the data needs for ubiquitous broadcast of network access and rapid unscheduled dissemination of alerts and messages. The presence of a geometrically distributed network of orbiting nodes transmitting the AFS forms the basis for the Lunar Augmented Navigation System (LANS), that delivers both radio navigation and data to multiple users in the lunar environment simultaneously. After reviewing the challenges associated with lunar navigation, this paper will describe the concepts and rationale behind the LunaNet PNT services. By borrowing techniques from Earth-centric Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS), the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards, PNT from LunaNet aids to overcome challenges faced for accurate lunar navigation.
Navigation↗
Interoperable Services to Mitigate Lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing Challenges
Across the Earth, both civilian and government endeavors enjoy a built-in reliance on a position, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure to which they are largely blind. Whether walking, driving, flying, or orbiting, Earth-centric PNT systems that have evolved over decades provide a core functionality to which we have grown accustomed for these pursuits. As NASA joins with other government space agencies and commercial partners to return humans to the Moon in a sustained manner within the current decade, expectations for PNT knowledge and timeliness at the Moon rival those on Earth. The need exists to develop a viable lunar-centric PNT infrastructure to support the planned human and robotic exploits. Navigating within the influence of the Moon presents its own set of challenges. Identification, understanding, and use of a unified reference frame and time system on which navigation is based becomes a fundamental need at the Moon. In addition to the unified foundational elements, measurement liability, dynamic conditions that require Earth-independent autonomous operations, and standards for PNT signals and message-based data exchange each represent distinct challenges to navigation in a burgeoning operational lunar environment. The PNT services planned as part of the lunar communications and navigation relay architecture known as LunaNet aid in surmounting the challenges. LunaNet interoperability specifications stipulate standards for signal parameters, messages, and lunar reference systems for PNT services. Within LunaNet’s defined interoperability resides the concept of a Reference Signal to provide communication signals specifically structured to enable measurement of pseudorange, Doppler, and time transfer by the recipient. One such signal type, the Augmented Forward Signal (AFS), functions as the mainstay for LunaNet PNT, while also serving the data needs for ubiquitous broadcast of network access and rapid unscheduled dissemination of alerts and messages. The presence of a geometrically distributed network of orbiting nodes transmitting the AFS forms the basis for the Lunar Augmented Navigation System (LANS), that delivers both radio navigation and data to multiple users in the lunar environment simultaneously. After reviewing the challenges associated with lunar navigation, this paper will describe the concepts and rationale behind the LunaNet PNT services. By borrowing techniques from Earth-centric Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS), the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards, PNT from LunaNet aids to overcome challenges faced for accurate lunar navigation.
LunaNet↗
Application and Use of Lunar Node-Derived Beacons for Lunar Surface Navigation
To maximize the scientific return and safety of operations on the lunar surface, multiple civil organizations are investing in Position, Navigation, and Timing infrastructure. This approach mimics the deployment of Global Navigation Satellite Systems around the Earth and aims to enable a similar robust capability around the moon. With these satellites, it will be possible to maintain high- fidelity knowledge of positioning and timing both on the surface and in orbit. For initial deployments, this capability is focused on high need areas, such as the Lunar South Pole, the target of the currently in-planning Artemis surface missions to high accuracy. Similar to GNSS systems, this capability will be implemented over time to build up to a level of global access for real-time navigation. For early missions, this means a limited capability in terms of coverage. To provide increased performance, ground augmentation can be leveraged. This not only provides an additional reference signal but helps to supply timing to enable a high accuracy real-time position solutions. This paper discusses the path towards evolving the Lunar Node 1 platform to augment these early constellation deployments. Analysis of notional performance with and without surface aids is provided, as well as discussion and paths towards deployment and operation. Given the analysis results, the benefit of surface navigation aids to both provide additional surface-based signals to fill in coverage gaps helps to provide additional robustness and an early-on capability.
Evan J. Anzalone↗
Autonomous navigation using lunar beacons
The concept of using lunar beacon signal transmission for on-board navigation for earth satellites and near-earth spacecraft is described. The system would require powerful transmitters on the earth-side of the moon's surface and black box receivers with antennae and microprocessors placed on board spacecraft for autonomous navigation. Spacecraft navigation requires three position and three velocity elements to establish location coordinates. Two beacons could be soft-landed on the lunar surface at the limits of allowable separation and each would transmit a wide-beam signal with cones reaching GEO heights and be strong enough to be received by small antennae in near-earth orbit. The black box processor would perform on-board computation with one-way Doppler/range data and dynamical models. Alternatively, GEO satellites such as the GPS or TDRSS spacecraft can be used with interferometric techniques to provide decimeter-level accuracy for aircraft navigation.
Khatib, A. R.↗
Tele-Operated Lunar Rover Navigation Using Lidar
Near real-time tele-operated driving on the lunar surface remains constrained by bandwidth and signal latency despite the Moon s relative proximity. As part of our work within NASA s Human-Robotic Systems Project (HRS), we have developed a stand-alone modular LIDAR based safeguarded tele-operation system of hardware, middleware, navigation software and user interface. The system has been installed and tested on two distinct NASA rovers-JSC s Centaur2 lunar rover prototype and ARC s KRex research rover- and tested over several kilometers of tele-operated driving at average sustained speeds of 0.15 - 0.25 m/s around rocks, slopes and simulated lunar craters using a deliberately constrained telemetry link. The navigation system builds onboard terrain and hazard maps, returning highest priority sections to the off-board operator as permitted by bandwidth availability. It also analyzes hazard maps onboard and can stop the vehicle prior to contacting hazards. It is robust to severe pose errors and uses a novel scan alignment algorithm to compensate for attitude and elevation errors.
Pedersen, Liam↗
A hardware simulation of a lunar midcourse navigation system using statistical filter theory and hand-held sextant observations
Kalman filter theory and sextant measurements for lunar midcourse guidance and navigation simulation
Christensen, J. V.↗
Laboratory and field tests of a lunar surface navigation system
Laboratory and field tests of dead reckoning system for lunar roving vehicles
Broussard, P. H., Jr.↗
Radar Altimetry and Velocimetry for Inertial Navigation: A Lunar Landing Example
The traditional role that altimetry and velocimetry have played in spacecraft landings is to provide a direct measure of the spacecraft's surface altitude and surface relative velocity; however, their role in determining an inertial position and velocity has seen limited investigation. In this study, inertially sensitive measurement models for altimetry and velocimetry are formulated that include relevant instrument and environment error models. These models are applied and simulated for a realistic lunar landing scenario that is based on recent work for NASA's Altair lander. The preliminary results indicate that inertial landing accuracies of several meters are possible.
navigation systesm↗
Lunar Search & Rescue Applications of Lunar GNSS
Accurate lunar navigation and timing knowledge provides for the development of safety-critical services in the cislunar and lunar surface domain. Currently under development, the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Search and Rescue Mission Office is investigating and integrating search and rescue (SAR) capability into planned and future lunar communication and navigation interfaces. Lunar Search and Rescue (LunaSAR) development has a stated end-goal for assured, reliable, and timely indication of distress events for a wide variety of lunar surface users, including government-sponsored, commercial, and international users. LunaSAR performance requirements are modelled after the current terrestrial Cospas-Sarsat distress notification system, leveraging an internationally robust global navigation satellite system (GNSS) ecosystem as a core element of survivor locating capability. This presentation will discuss NASA’s work to develop user-focused distress messaging capabilities including infusion of example sensor data for triggering of automated distress alerts coupled with location-tagging. Additionally, the presentation will examine overall message structures, rotating fields for use in bi-directional distress messaging, and specific use cases based on NASA’s lunar exploration and lunar communication relay architectures. Modelling and simulation of LunaSAR use by individual lunar explorers will be discussed, based on notional industry and government design reference missions and mission considerations. Results from GSFC-funded Internal Research and Development (IRAD) efforts will be detailed, including successful distress message formulation simulating the ingestion of example legacy space suit telemetry fields. Hardware-in-the-loop testing using high-reliability software defined radio (SDR) modules serve as an example of IRAD successes and the framework for technical requirements. Architectural development and technical evolution from 2020 to 2021 included alignment of LunaSAR distress waveforms with ongoing NASA LunaNet interoperability development, as well as engagement with NASA Lunar Spectrum authorities for allocation of UHF-band distress frequencies on the lunar surface. S-Band and UHF-band transmission characteristics will be detailed, along with band-specific applications of each emission type. Additionally, examples of ingestion and formatting of GNSS signals (using historical terrestrial National Marine Electronics Association-formatted GNSS data) will be detailed, underscoring lunar user needs for a common lunar GNSS receiver output message framework. Maturity and ability to support evolving lunar exploration goals has been demonstrated and will be detailed, with maturity gaps such as position, navigation, and timing (PNT) and lunar reference frames identified within the context of distress message generation. Provision of LunaSAR services for lunar surface users represents a new era of ensured safety for lunar explorers and builds off of forty years of the Cospas-Sarsat program, underscoring the importance of lunar GNSS for safety-critical applications and growing interest in safe, reliable lunar surface operations. Enabled by new GNSS systems being developed by government and industry partners, NASA will continue to evolve and integrate lunar GNSS types into distress message generation, with a focus on compact and efficient message transmission over various lunar communication links. When fielded, LunaSAR will be the first dedicated search and rescue notification system employed on another celestial body. Robust lunar navigation and timing services form the core of LunaSAR capabilities, allowing for system syncing with time-dominant sensors, and high-accuracy location of those in distress while engaged in lunar surface activities.
Search and Rescue↗
Navigation for Apollo lunar landings
Space navigation for Apollo 11 mission, emphasizing ground and onboard systems, interfaces with guidance and use in phases of lunar landing
Mayer, J. P.↗
Reactive, Safe Navigation for Lunar and Planetary Robots
When humans return to the moon, Astronauts will be accompanied by robotic helpers. Enabling robots to safely operate near astronauts on the lunar surface has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of crew surface operations. Safely operating robots in close proximity to astronauts on the lunar surface requires reactive obstacle avoidance capabilities not available on existing planetary robots. In this paper we present work on safe, reactive navigation using a stereo based high-speed terrain analysis and obstacle avoidance system. Advances in the design of the algorithms allow it to run terrain analysis and obstacle avoidance algorithms at full frame rate (30Hz) on off the shelf hardware. The results of this analysis are fed into a fast, reactive path selection module, enforcing the safety of the chosen actions. The key components of the system are discussed and test results are presented.
Utz, Hans↗
A Lunar Communications and Navigation Satellite Concept for the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program
The Second Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP) mission has two primary objectives. Broadly stated, they are "To See the Light" and "To Touch the Ice", meaning one mission objective is to survey the lighting conditions on the rim of a candidate crater over the course of a year, and the second objective is to descend into th.! s crater to search for water ice. The Space Communications Program Office at NASA/GSFC is supporting the RLEP-2 Project by developing a communications and navigation architecture for the mission. The primary candidate crater studied is the Shackleton Crater near the South Pole of the Moon. The rim of this crater has approximately 14 contiguous days of visibility to the Earth over the course of a month, while mission elements in the crater have no line of sight to either the Earth or potentially an element on the rim of the crater. One solution studied is to launch a relay spacecraft with RLEP-2 to provide communications and navigation services to the elements on the lunar surface. To support operations concepts requiring long duration contacts between the relay and the elements in the crater, an inclined elliptical orbit originally conceived by Todd Ely a t JPL was chosen for the relay. The orbit was adjusted to lower the maximum range while maintaining its "frozen" nature, meaning once placed in this orbit little delta-V is required for orbit maintenance. The orbital parameters were adjusted such that the relay has visibility into the crater for approximately 8.7 hours of the 12 hour orbital period. The relay satellite design draws heavily upon heritage concepts and hardware to achieve a very low risk implementation. The design concept is a 3-axis spacecraft that is capable of supporting return communication links from multiple surface elements concurrently through a four-element S-Band Multiple Access phased array with two forward links provided through single dedicated elements. The payload is a bent-pipe relay with beamforming performed on the ground (Earth). To mitigate concerns with multipath observed during Mars missions, the preliminary design employs PN-spread signal structures which have been used successfully by Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) users for simultaneous real-time and recorded data playback. Details of the relay communication trade studies and rationale for the selected design elements are discussed in the paper.
Gramling, Jeffrey J.↗
Terrestrial Demonstration of Orbital Mapping and Validation Capabilities Over a Lunar Surface Analog
The Lunar Navigation Maps (LuNaMaps) project has improved existing tools and processes and developed new tools and processes to support the generation and validation of navigation maps of the lunar surface from orbital imagery. To demonstrate the advancements made through the LuNaMaps project, we conducted a terrestrial demonstration obtaining “orbital” imagery of the Lunar Surface Proving Ground (LSPG) at Astrobotic’s test facility in Mojave California. The LSPG is a 100 m by 100 m pad built to mimic the features and appearance of the lunar surface. In this paper we describe the planning and results of the test, including the capture of imagery for building the maps, the map building processes, building of a “truth map” using traditional surveying tools, and the map validation processes. We demonstrate how the built map compares to the “truth map” and how the validation processes provided insight to this comparison. Additionally, we describe an upcoming partner test in which the navigation maps will be used in a terrain relative navigation (TRN) technology demonstration over the same LSPG surface.
mapping↗
Lunar surface navigation analysis
The accuracy of the crew position obtained by using a line-of-sight device such as a sun compass or the rover television camera and the prominent mountains such as Hadley and Hadley delta was investigated. It was determined that with errors of 1 deg (noise only), the crew position can be obtained to sigma sub phi = 850 feet and sigma sub lambda = 400 feet using Hadley and Hadley delta. The addition of West Mountain reduced the errors to 600 and 400 feet, respectively.
Savely, R. T.↗
Lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Juan Crenshaw↗
The Design of a Flexible, Interoperable Navigation Signal for Future Lunar Missions
The LunaNet Interoperability Specification (LNIS) is a set of standards currently under development by NASA, ESA, and JAXA, which define a common, interoperable set of services and interfaces for lunar communication and navigation. The LNIS includes specifications for the GNSS-like Augmented Forward Signal (AFS). The LANS (Lunar Augmented Navigation Service) will be comprised of Multiple LunaNet Service Provider (LNSP) nodes broadcasting the AFS, such as NASA’s LCRNS (Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems), ESA’s Moonlight LCNS (Lunar Communication and Navigation Services) and the Japan LNSS (Lunar Navigation Satellite System). The LANS will provide a GNSS-like capability enabling orbiting and surface users in lunar space (such as Artemis) to estimate their position, velocity and time as described in Giordano et al., (2023). Initial capabilities will focus on providing service to the lunar South pole region. The specification of AFS defines two orthogonal signal components on a single carrier, with the in-phase component (AFS-I) being a lower-chip-rate data channel tailored for applications where low SWaP is critical (e.g., IoT devices or search and rescue), and the quadrature component (AFS-Q) being a high-chip-rate data-less pilot signal for high-precision, robust lunar navigation and positioning applications. An initial description of AFS was provided in the LNIS, (2023), and initial analysis results were shown in Dafesh, et al., (2024). In this work, we provide rationale for updates to the LNIS that define key aspects of the signal including the primary spreading code designs for the data and pilot channels, and a three-tiered overlay code approach for the pilot channel that provides flexible signal acquisition alternatives, rapid time dissemination and robust frame Sync. The paper also describes a robust data sync word that is designed to enable frame Sync. for low-SWaP receivers that only use the I channel, as well as a low-density parity check code (LDPC) data message encoding design and interleaving definition. The work further describes the impact of the updated AFS design in terms of improved acquisition performance, interference resistance, navigation message capabilities and rapid absolute time dissemination for users able to access clock and ephemeris data over an external network. The cross-correlation and synchronization performance of the AFS design is also compared to potential alternatives, further providing rationale for the final signal design configuration.
LANS↗
The Design of a Flexible, Interoperable Navigation Signal for Future Lunar Missions
The LunaNet Interoperability Specification (LNIS) is a set of standards currently under development by NASA, ESA, and JAXA, which define a common, interoperable set of services and interfaces for lunar communication and navigation. The LNIS includes specifications for the GNSS-like Augmented Forward Signal (AFS). The LANS (Lunar Augmented Navigation Service) will be comprised of Multiple LunaNet Service Provider (LNSP) nodes broadcasting the AFS, such as NASA’s LCRNS (Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems), ESA’s Moonlight LCNS (Lunar Communication and Navigation Services) and the Japan LNSS (Lunar Navigation Satellite System). The LANS will provide a GNSS-like capability enabling orbiting and surface users in lunar space (such as Artemis) to estimate their position, velocity and time as described in Giordano et al., (2023). Initial capabilities will focus on providing service to the lunar South pole region. The specification of AFS defines two orthogonal signal components on a single carrier, with the in-phase component (AFS-I) being a lower-chip-rate data channel tailored for applications where low SWaP is critical (e.g., IoT devices or search and rescue), and the quadrature component (AFS-Q) being a high-chip-rate data-less pilot signal for high-precision, robust lunar navigation and positioning applications. An initial description of AFS was provided in the LNIS, (2023), and initial analysis results were shown in Dafesh, et al., (2024). In this work, we provide rationale for updates to the LNIS that define key aspects of the signal including the primary spreading code designs for the data and pilot channels, and a three-tiered overlay code approach for the pilot channel that provides flexible signal acquisition alternatives, rapid time dissemination and robust frame Sync. The paper also describes a robust data sync word that is designed to enable frame Sync. for low-SWaP receivers that only use the I channel, as well as a low-density parity check code (LDPC) data message encoding design and interleaving definition. The work further describes the impact of the updated AFS design in terms of improved acquisition performance, interference resistance, navigation message capabilities and rapid absolute time dissemination for users able to access clock and ephemeris data over an external network. The cross-correlation and synchronization performance of the AFS design is also compared to potential alternatives, further providing rationale for the final signal design configuration.
LunaNet↗