SBIR-STTR Award

SkyMage is a ranged intelligence system, endorsed by stakeholders at AFRL, that offloads the heavy, power-hungry and often single use pieces of PNT hardware from cislunar spacecraft into a dedicated and shared sensor array. This sensor array is a layered architecture with multiple types of orbital units and lunar surface-based elements. SkyMage has an Internet-of-Things (IoT) like infusion approach, where each piece of technology is individually capable as a stand alone solution or as part of a broader technology suite. SkyMage is conceptually similar to the terrestrial Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) for aviation navigation which supplements the existing Global Positioning System (GPS) for all phases of flight and can be paired with a Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS), a ground-based network of sensors for precision landing enhancements in and around the terminal area. SkyMage is comprised of 3 main parts: 1) Passive Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS), delivered by Masten’s XL-1 spacecraft from low lunar orbit to strategic surface locations, to mark keep-out zones or cleared landing zones for lunar landers. 2) Active UGS are discrete nodes that provide precise ranging and spatial positioning data to lunar landers. Active UGS improve PNT, remove on-board lander hardware, and enable landing in the dark. 3) Orbital Arrays support SDA capabilities and enhance data resolution of ground sensors. SDA capabilities begin with outer layers of orbital assets using multispectral active imaging, visible and infrared, and incorporated ranging hardware. Outer layers provide detection/ tracking of inbound objects, while inner layers provide persistent reconnaissance and orbital management to round out the defensive space control posture. All elements of the proposed architecture are baselined on high TRL terrestrial systems.

Currently, lunar spacecraft operate in a sensor shadow. The lack of in-place navigational infrastructure means that cislunar orbital assets and mission landers must carry on-board all of the required hardware for vision-based navigation. Spacecraft carry hazard detection sensors, ranging and velocimetry sensors, and compute elements to obtain Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) data. This approach is demanding of computational processing and spacecraft power resources. Most onboard navigation systems are point-designed to only support the short-term service demand and will be essentially dead assets once the orbiter is on station or the lander is on the surface. Providing no more utility to the current mission or future missions, these systems have become a mass penalty and a burden of resource allocation that could have otherwise been used for increased payload capacity or expanded spacecraft performance. An opportunity exists to develop a shared cislunar navigation infrastructure by consolidating PNT solutions into a distributed positional awareness array. As the cislunar domain becomes an increasingly competitive environment among US entities, commercial actors, and other spacefaring nations, the demand for precision location tracking will grow. Operators will seek reduced landing ellipses to improve proximity to resource-rich territories, areas of scientific interest, or other strategically important locations. Prepositioned infrastructure acts as a security net to future US-led missions to the Moon by providing redundancy or enhancement to navigational functions. This infrastructure could also support Space Domain Awareness (SDA) by tracking the orbital or surface position of lunar assets and objects. With the proper cislunar navigation infrastructure, spacecraft could be designed for optimization with the potential to save $10M or more per mission in direct subsystem costs, maximize payload delivery yields, and extend overall mission durations. In Phase II, Masten will develop a PNT ground beacon network and perform a demonstration flight of the SkyMage BRN network using Masten's Xodiac rocket powered lander. Four SkyMage PNT beacons will be placed around the test area to create a ground network. The Xodiac vehicle will fly a predefined trajectory and use a receiver to collect position and velocity estimates provided by the ground beacons. After the flight, Masten will use Xodiac's native navigation solution as truth data to compare against the SkyMage PNT data as a post-flight assessment of the utility of the prototype SkyMage BRN solution. This demonstration flight will validate the SkyMage beacons in a terrestrial system and provide a stepping stone to a future closed-loop flight, in which the SkyMage navigation solution would be integrated into Xodiac's navigation algorithm and provide a path towards a future Lunar demonstration.