Cislunar and Lunar Mission Preparation and Operations

New low-thrust solar electric propulsion systems are being developed to minimize propellant usage and increase mission lifetime. Several nations, including commercial organizations, have operated spacecraft in cislunar space, and more are planned. Low-thrust systems have been used in cislunar and deep space, and as newer commercial low-thrust systems become available, they will continue to be used in cislunar space. The chaotic nature and large distances make cislunar trajectories hard to track, and this is further complicated when spacecraft use low-thrust propulsion systems which make the trajectory hard to track and nearly impossible to predict. These issues make the activities of such spacecraft hard to monitor and therefore pose a threat to US spacecraft in geosynchronous and other orbits. The DoD desires to understand, monitor, and operate low-thrust spacecraft in cislunar space. The program objective of this effort is to develop the capability to track and plan cislunar missions using low-thrust propulsion. We propose creating a system to plan and perform navigation, orbit determination, and other flight dynamics tasks for low-thrust spacecraft operating in the cislunar regime. This system is based on commercial methods, analysis, and tools that we have used ourselves to review, design, analyze, and operate numerous NASA and commercial cislunar and lunar satellite missions.