Future Lunar surface comms using Cognitive 3gpp Radio Access Networks for Ubiquitous Mission success (FULCRUM)

AiRANACULUS, a Boston-based startup and developer of NASA sponsored CLAIRE and INSPiRE technologies, along with, RadiSys, Reed Engineering (Prof. Jeff Reed, Virginia Tech, IEEE Fellow and Dr. Nishith Tripathi, NTN expert) and Prof. Ricardo Lent (DTN Expert, U. of Houston) propose Future Lunar comms architecture using Cognitive 3gpp Radio Access Networks for Ubiquitous Mission success (FULCRUM), that provides cognitive delay tolerant Networking leveraging disparate technologies such as 4G / 5G / 5G-NTN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LoRa as well as Legacy NASA Radios. This enables resilient communications and reduces the probability of outage. FULCRUM will reduce the mission and network operations burden, increase mission science data return, improve resource efficiencies for NASA missions and communication networks, reduce power consumption, and ensure resilience in the unpredictable space environment. FULCRUM will be enhanced by the NASA sponsored CLAIRE and INSPiRE technologies, which are protocol agnostic and may be applied to 4G / 5G / Wi-Fi and legacy NASA Radios. FULCRUM architecture, incorporating CLAIRE and INSPiRE as xAPPs / rAPPs, create the next generation Software Defined Network (SDN) for Lunar and Earth Data Networks (LDN / EDN) over heterogeneous wireless communications technologies. FULCRUM uses published Release 17 5G specifications and the ongoing 3GPP Release 18 work to specify network architectures to facilitate connectivity between surface and orbital assets for trunk links, continuous coverage of the lunar south pole and far side, as well as potential direct-to-handheld orbital 5G links. Specifically, the project uses 3GPP features such as the Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN), Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB), 5G NR sidelink communications, network slicing, local breakout (LBO), and simultaneous 3GPP access and non-3GPP access.