Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS)

Future missions operated by NASA, commercial entities, and international agencies will face increasing congestion due to limited communication and navigation infrastructure. To address this potential bottleneck, Advanced Space proposes to continue developing a high-impact navigation technology that will enable future missions. Specifically, the proposed effort will further develop capabilities to enable autonomous onboard flight navigation that incorporates spaceborne and ground-based measurements. The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS) will use the existing flight radio, antenna, attitude determination and control, and other subsystems of the spacecraft to provide the host spacecraft with an autonomously generated absolute position estimate. CAPS is a peer-to-peer navigation solution that is a self-sustaining, scalable, and evolvable innovation that operationalizes and leverages investments made in algorithms, flight computers, and radios over the past decade. CAPS can be thought of as a subsystem of a host spacecraft that can process inter-spacecraft range and range-rate measurements between multiple spacecraft in cislunar space to determine absolute position estimates for all participating spacecraft. The focus of the proposed effort is to design and develop key software components that will prepare CAPS for flight demonstrations and ultimately broad adoption by future missions to the lunar vicinity.

There are many potential customers for CAPS. Applications that benefit NASA are the first priority. These missions include missions such as Orion EM-1, Lunar Flashlight, Lunar Ice Cube, LunaH-Map, Skyfire, Orion EM-2-5, Deep Space Gateway Power and Propulsion Element, Deep Space Gateway Habitat, Resource Prospector, and MoonRise to name a subset. Ultimately any mission operating in orbit around or on the surface of the Moon would be a potential key customer. Notably, missions that include distributed scientific sensing platforms would particularly benefit from the capability that CAPS would deliver.

Other potential customers for CAPS include commercial companies such as lander and orbiter activities. Further market opportunities are expected in support of international customers. A convergence of science and exploration missions at or around the Moon is expected in the coming years, which will be accompanied by numerous commercial and international missions. In all of these cases demand for tracking and navigation services will be stressed. The addition of small satellite explorers and the potential for long-duration habitats and reusable in-space stages all compound the need and result in a robust market opportunity.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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