Previous Abstract Return to Session D4 Next Abstract

Session D4: PNT Situational Awareness: Operations

Space-Based PNT Situational Awareness Joint Commercial Operations
Michael R. Thompson, The Aerospace Corporation; Patrick "Ralph" Lookabaugh, USSF Joint Commercial Operations Electromagnetic Spectrum Ops Cell Lead; Brendan Bock, Juliana Chew, Hagop Chinchinian, Bert Hayden, Steven Lewis, Sharif Mutasim, Greg Myer, Ed Powers, Jeffrey Won, The Aerospace Corporation
Location: Room 6-8
Date/Time: Monday, Jun. 3, 4:25 p.m.

In 2023 the first all-commercial PNT Situational Awareness (PNT-SA) capability called Data Exploitation and Enhanced Processing (DEEP) PNT transitioned to operations. DEEP-PNT was transitioned from The Aerospace Corporation's revolutionary pathfinder massless payload prototype effort to a rapid operational prototyping effort led by the US Space Force (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC) and Slingshot Aerospace with multiple commercial data providers. Since being operational, DEEP-PNT has supported multiple missions across all domains as the PNT-SA tool for US Space Command's (USSPACECOM) Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) Cell led by Lt Col Ralph Lookabaugh. The Aerospace Corporation's pathfinder prototype has continued to play a pivotal role as it has evolved into USSPACECOM’s PNT-SA Mission Assurance Toolkit (MATK) that continues to provide data curation, mission assurance, and capability advancements.
DEEP-PNT and the associated MATK can ingest and processes Multi-GNSS telemetry from multiple commercial constellations to provide independent operational products and feed external user common operating pictures. Generally, the commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) receivers are not purpose-built for precision electromagnetic monitoring. However, DEEP-PNT can process the data to extract and spatiotemporally map the most probable manufactured interference. The MATK is currently in the process of integrating additional satellites that have more sensitive receivers and more extensive metadata. These additional data sources will combine the persistent, global coverage of commercial constellations with the more sensitive receivers and extensive telemetry of the new sources.
DEEP-PNT has also established a scalable and extensible data architecture for future sources of data such as the planned Space Development Agency (SDA) PNT-SA Tranche 1 sensors. The enterprise architecture includes options for data transport, storage, processing, and dissemination of derivative operational products. A space-based PNT-SA data standard has been created, while efforts have been made to ensure modularity and interoperability. The initial DEEP-PNT capability includes a full-spectrum of commercial sensors: crowd-sourced, direct monitoring for general awareness to exquisite with the ability to fully characterize sources of manufactured interference. The DEEP team continues to work towards further standardizing and ingesting new GNSS receiver telemetry fields available from commercial providers into the DEEP-PNT MATK algorithms, which will allow for enhanced capabilities in interference monitoring and potentially contribute to space weather monitoring. The current work being done by the DEEP-PNT team is buying down cost, risk, and schedule for SDA and other extended RF monitoring massless payloads.
This presentation will highlight DEEP-PNT operational products and successes for government agencies and will summarize future enhancements that are being developed for the Space Development Agency and USSPACECOM JCO EMSO. Space-based PNT situational awareness is a key enabler for awareness and protection of shared spectrum and DEEP-PNT is providing demonstrable, operational capabilities.
(Approved for public release. OTR 2024-00251)

Previous Abstract Return to Session D4 Next Abstract