Cislunar Space Operations: Deterrence via SWIR Tracking

The cislunar volume comprises regions in space influenced primarily by the Moon's gravity well. Such regions include "super-GEO" orbits (Earth-orbiting objects with multi-day orbital periods), lunar-orbiting objects, and objects orbiting around the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. It is well known that the regime of Earth-orbiting objects (up to GEO) is congested and contested, yet the cislunar volume is relatively open and unopposed. Nonetheless, recent events demonstrate the need and importance of cislunar space situational awareness, a key component of the Space Development Agency's (SDA) envisioned deterrence layer. In this SBIR effort, Numerica proposes to (i) mature and demonstrate a novel approach to providing low-cost cislunar space surveillance capabilities through a combined hardware and software solution that leverages the Numerica Telescope Network (NTN) and its short-wave infrared (SWIR) tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TCPED) pipeline; and (ii) to engage with end users and other key stakeholders within the USAF's SSA and BMC2 communities, identify product-market fit between related NTN/TCPED capabilities and USAF pain points, formulate and execute pilot trials, and ultimately transition a low-cost cislunar capability to the warfighter.