A Commercial Framework for Assessing Cislunar Mission Activities and Opportunities

Several nations, including commercial organizations, have operated spacecraft in cislunar space, and more are planned. The DoD desires to understand and monitor these, and to operate spacecraft in cislunar space. Unlike low-Earth and Geosynchronous orbits, there are numerous types of cislunar trajectories, and they are hard to track.  These include complex trajectories that use the gravity of the Sun and Moon. Some missions use high-thrust chemical engines, others low-thrust solar electric, and some propose hybrid architectures. The mathematically chaotic cislunar trajectories make some cislunar trajectories ideal responsive orbits, enabling relatively quick relocation with minimal propellant. This also makes the trajectories hard to monitor and therefore poses a threat to US spacecraft in geosynchronous and other orbits. The program objective is to enable decision makers and analysts to systematically assess and guide decisions about the opportunities and threats of planned and actual cislunar missions. We propose creating an analytical framework including navigation, orbit determination, and flight dynamics. This is based on commercial methods, training packages, analysis, and tools that we have used ourselves to review, design, analyze, and operate numerous NASA and commercial cislunar and lunar satellite missions. This framework will be implemented as documented methods, procedures, and software tools.