A Novel Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization Architecture for a Radio Navigation Satellite Constellation in the Cislunar Environment

Luciano Iess Mauro Di Benedetto Giovanni Boscagli Paolo Racioppa Andrea Sesta Fabrizio De Marchi Paolo Cappuccio Daniele Durante Serena Molli Michael K. Plumaris Pasquale Tartaglia Agnes Fienga Nicolas Rambeaux Fabrizio Santi Debora Pastina Nicola Linty Krzysztof Sosnica Grzegorz Bury Radoslaw Zajdel Jacopo Belfi Pietro Giordano Richard Swinden, and Javier Ventura-Traveset

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	This paper presents a novel concept for orbit determination and time synchronization of a lunar radio navigation system. The proposed approach is based on small ground antennas that simultaneously track the entire constellation using K-band frequency links, implementing the concept of multiple spacecraft per aperture. This configuration ensures sufficient data rates and provides high accuracy in Doppler, range, and single-beam interferometry observables, enabling a precise orbit determination. We assess the achieved time transfer accuracies using both the standard asynchronous two-way satellite time and frequency transfer and a novel time transfer method that leverages onboard code epoch time-stamping and precise spacecraft range information. We propose a structure for the navigation message as well as a reference frame and associated time scale for user positioning. We complete the analysis by estimating the attainable accuracies of the signal-in-space error.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 72, Number 3
Cite this article:	Citation Tools are available on the NAVIGATION open access site https://doi.org/10.33012/navi.713
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