AutoNav Mark 4: Autonomous Navigation Software

The growing number of missions in deep space, from Discovery class missions like Psyche and Lucy down to very small spacecraft like Lunar Flashlight, is driving the need for standardized, flexible, full-featured flight software for spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GNC). Autonomous GNC allows a spacecraft to perform most of its own navigation activities without the need for ground-based personnel and DSN time, reducing cost and required DSN contact time, saving money, and allowing specialized navigation personnel from different NASA centers to be easily shared among missions. Autonomous GNC activities include: -spacecraft positioning absolute and relative (helio, planet, small-body) relative to small bodies, other spacecraft for rendezvous -orbit determination -target tracking of bodies, apertures, spacecraft, ground-based assets -trajectory derivation -low-thrust maneuvering for Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) -ephemeris calculations AutoNav from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory implements these functions, and components have flown on Deep Space 1 and Deep Impact. With an appropriate application of software development process to reengineer the code, a new AutoNav Mark 4 could be made available as a commercialized product meeting NASA Class B software standards, thereby enabling its easy inclusion on a wide variety of NASA and non-NASA missions. AutoNav Mark 4 source code is designed and tested to be compatible with a variety of different CPUs (e.g. SPARC, PPC, Intel), real-time operating systems (VxWorks, RTEMS), and flight software cores like NASA Core Flight System. This approach allows AN4 to be deployed in the widest-possible set of environments: -within STRS-compatible space radios (e.g. Iris) -in the flight software load of the spacecraft C&DH -in a dedicated stand-alone instrument like the Deep Space Positioning System AutoNav Mark 4 provides highly capable autonomous GNC while saving missions money.

AutoNav Mark 4 is applicable to any space mission requiring any of the following: -spacecraft positioning absolute and relative (helio, planet, small-body) relative to small bodies and other spacecraft for rendezvous -orbit determination -target tracking of bodies, apertures, spacecraft, ground-based assets -trajectory derivation -low-thrust maneuvering for Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) -ephemeris calculations All mission perform some or all of the prior activities, frequently using ground-based personnel and processes that are slow and expensive. Commercialized on-board autonomous navigation as provided by AutoNav Mark 4 can be targeted at the whole range of LEO, GEO, and interplanetary missions, large and small. AutoNav Mark 4 for low-thrust missions (including Psyche and Next Mars Orbiter) would allow a dramatic reduction in navigation and trajectory calculation costs by moving the bulk of these activities onboard. Long missions like these would incur even more savings using AN4 than more modest missions. AutoNav Mark 4 is directly applicable to JPL's Deep Space Positioning System. By using a commercialized AutoNav, JPL would avoid most development costs, providing only new algorithms from its Navigation Section to plug into the AutoNav Mark 4 architecture. Human spaceflight could use AutoNav Mark 4 for navigation and trajectory calculation in the event of communications failure, allowing the astronauts to safely reenter and land.

Since AutoNav Mark 4 works with any flight software core, it could be applied to non-NASA spacecraft: DoD, NOAA, and ESA missions are prime candidates. International release of software should be possible under ITAR controls. AutoNav Mark 4 could be directly applied to commercial launch vehicles in order to calculate ascent maneuvers, including for human access to space. Installing AutoNav Mark 4 just on small commercial missions having a CubeSat form factor would allow these missions to proceed at reduced cost, removing much of the need for expensive navigator personnel time. This would free missions from having to implement these capabilities, leading to better reliability of navigation, simpler mission conops, more cross-mission synergy, and lower barriers of entry for less experience providers like universities. Future commercial human spaceflight could utilize AutoNav Mark 4 for on-board spacecraft navigation and trajectory calculation. This would be most useful in the event of a communications failure, allowing the astronauts to autonomously calculate a return trajectory for re-entry and landing without any interactions with ground-based expertise. It would also allow a low earth orbiting mission to track down and rendezvous with other spacecraft or the International Space Station for servicing, cargo transfer, personnel transfer, and the like, without requiring contact with the ground.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — 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.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.