A Strategy for Initial Orbit Determination of Lunar Navigation Satellite Based on Range and Doppler Measurements

Sungik Kim, Byungwoon Park

Abstract:	The provision of a reliable Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) service is essential for the successful implementation a lunar colony as a new space for human habitation on the Moon. While there are several space navigation technologies currently used, including the Deep Space Network (DSN), celestial optical triangulation and terrain relative navigation, recent accidents of lunar lander demonstrate that current space navigation technologies still have limitations that make them inappropriate for safe future deep space missions. Furthermore, the increasing demands of DSN have brought it close to its capacity. To overcome these limitations, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA), continue to develop strategies for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) like PNT services at cis-lunar distance, for example, such as LunaNet and Moonlight. From these backgrounds, Future Navigation & Satellite Research Center in Korea has proposed its LNSS operation concept using a set of small CubeSats to make an LNSS system efficient and effective. In this study we focus on initial batch orbit estimations of CubeSats and propose an approach to determine the orbit of lunar navigation satellites at the initial stage via estimating satellites’ orbital parameters directly. Monte Carlo simulations of initial batch orbit determinations for two cases were conducted, one is that the orbits of CubeSats are inclined eccentric orbit and the other is that the orbits of CubeSats are polar circular orbit.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 36th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2023) September 11 - 15, 2023 Hyatt Regency Denver Denver, Colorado
Pages:	4099 - 4109
Cite this article:	Kim, Sungik, Park, Byungwoon, "A Strategy for Initial Orbit Determination of Lunar Navigation Satellite Based on Range and Doppler Measurements," Proceedings of the 36th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2023), Denver, Colorado, September 2023, pp. 4099-4109. https://doi.org/10.33012/2023.19375
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