High-Order Statistical Uncertainty Management for Cislunar Space (HOSUM)

Cislunar missions, both for civilian and military sectors, are growing in number.  Future military operations in the cislunar region will require advances to key technologies to address significant challenges related to space domain awareness (SDA).  The proposed technology addresses a specific and significant challenge related to uncertainty quantification of cislunar space objects.  It is well-known that extended propagation times for space objects leads to the classic “banana shape” probability density function (PDF) for objects within the GEO-belt.  The XAnalytix Systems team, along with its partners, Penn State and the University at Buffalo, have developed accurate and computationally efficient algorithms to quantify this classic PDF.  However, space objects in the cislunar region present much more difficult aspects to quantify this PDF because of the highly nonlinear dynamics associated with the three-body problem. The proposed technology will build upon the prior research conducted by the research team to quantify the uncertainty in the cislunar region.  Specifically, representations and coordinate systems that allow accurate uncertainty representation and preserve fundamental properties of cislunar orbits will be identified and used to provide a tractable solution. Space-object maneuvers, ranging from classic impulse-type to modern continuous-type, will also be considered in the developed technology.  An adaptive framework will be established, based on significant past efforts, that enables a capability for multiple-fidelity uncertainty propagation, while accurately quantifying the PDF through computational efficient means.  This framework will significantly advance SDA capabilities in the cislunar region, which in turn will provide unique capabilities to our nation’s space-based defense needs.