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Xplore wins award from Air Force to study navigational tools for moon missions

Xplore spacecraft
An artisti’s conception shows Xplore’s Xcraft with the moon in the background. (Xplore Illustration)

Seattle-based Xplore has won a $50,000 award from the Air Force to develop an architecture for keeping track of missions between Earth and the moon.

The three-month study is being funded through the Air Force’s AFWERX technology innovation program, a partnership involving the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Security Innovation Network. The Air Force wants to develop systems for position, navigation and timing, or PNT, that would extend a GPS-like tracking system to cislunar space — that is, the domain of space extending to the moon.

Without such a system, it would be extremely difficult for spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon to identify their precise position. That’s expected to become increasingly important as NASA and commercial companies send new waves of probes to the moon, establishing the infrastructure for crewed missions to the moon by as early as 2024. There are also national security implications for monitoring traffic in cislunar space.

Lisa Rich, Xplore’s founder and chief operating officer, said the Air Force’s interest in cislunar navigational systems meshed perfectly with the requirements for Xplore’s Xcraft spacecraft, which is meant to take on missions to the moon as well as Mars, Venus, asteroids and other deep-space destinations. The first Xcraft is due for launch as early as next year.

“When we started our design process, it was clear that GPS was not going to work beyond Earth orbit, and we would have to design new systems,” she told GeekWire.

Rich said one concept involves deploying Cubesat-sized “space buoys” from the Xcraft, making it possible to triangulate on the positions of different spacecraft. Xplore’s navigation system would work even in highly elliptical orbits where typical GPS receivers would fail to pick up a signal.

“The groundbreaking part of this is that cislunar space is a very strong interest of the Air Force,” she said. She said she’s proud of the fact that Xplore’s “thought leadership has been recognized.”

In a news release issued today, Clive Neal, a Notre Dame engineering professor who specializes in lunar operations, said Xplore’s navigational concept “has strong technical and programmatic merit, and it supports USAF objectives.”

“Not only is it a step in obtaining security in the cislunar domain, it provides vital infrastructure for expanding humanity to the moon, and for creation of a vibrant cislunar economy,” Neal said. “This first opportunity for Xplore has good potential.”

Xplore’s Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research study could lead to more funding in future phases of the program.

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