{"id":17750,"date":"2020-04-06T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/xplore-wins-award-from-air-force-to-study-navigational-tools-for-moon-missions\/"},"modified":"2020-04-06T19:02:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T11:02:00","slug":"xplore-wins-award-from-air-force-to-study-navigational-tools-for-moon-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/xplore-wins-award-from-air-force-to-study-navigational-tools-for-moon-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"Xplore wins award from Air Force to study navigational tools for moon missions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Xplore
An artisti\u2019s conception shows Xplore\u2019s Xcraft with the moon in the background. (Xplore Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seattle-based Xplore has won a $50,000 award from the Air Force to develop an architecture for keeping track of missions between Earth and the moon.<\/p>\n

The three-month study is being funded through the Air Force\u2019s AFWERX technology innovation program, a partnership involving the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Security Innovation Network. The Air Force wants to develop systems for position, navigation and timing, or PNT, that would extend a GPS-like tracking system to cislunar space \u2014 that is, the domain of space extending to the moon.<\/p>\n

Without such a system, it would be extremely difficult for spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon to identify their precise position. That\u2019s expected to become increasingly important as NASA and commercial companies send new waves of probes to the moon, establishing the infrastructure for crewed missions to the moon by as early as 2024. There are also national security implications for monitoring traffic in cislunar space.<\/p>\n

Lisa Rich, Xplore\u2019s founder and chief operating officer, said the Air Force\u2019s interest in cislunar navigational systems meshed perfectly with the requirements for Xplore\u2019s Xcraft spacecraft, which is meant to take on missions to the moon as well as Mars, Venus, asteroids and other deep-space destinations. The first Xcraft is due for launch as early as next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started our design process, it was clear that GPS was not going to work beyond Earth orbit, and we would have to design new systems,\u201d she told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

Rich said one concept involves deploying Cubesat-sized \u201cspace buoys\u201d from the Xcraft, making it possible to triangulate on the positions of different spacecraft. Xplore\u2019s navigation system would work even in highly elliptical orbits where typical GPS receivers would fail to pick up a signal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe groundbreaking part of this is that cislunar space is a very strong interest of the Air Force,\u201d she said. She said she\u2019s proud of the fact that Xplore\u2019s \u201cthought leadership has been recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a news release issued today, Clive Neal, a Notre Dame engineering professor who specializes in lunar operations, said Xplore\u2019s navigational concept \u201chas strong technical and programmatic merit, and it supports USAF objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is it a step in obtaining security in the cislunar domain, it provides vital infrastructure for expanding humanity to the moon, and for creation of a vibrant cislunar economy,\u201d Neal said. \u201cThis first opportunity for Xplore has good potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xplore\u2019s Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research study could lead to more funding in future phases of the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artisti\u2019s conception shows Xplore\u2019s Xcraft with the moon in the background. (Xplore Illustration) Seattle-based Xplore has won a $50,000 award from the Air Force to develop an architecture for keeping track of missions between Earth and the moon. The three-month study is being funded through the Air Force\u2019s AFWERX technology innovation program, a partnership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[437,625,4588,4426],"class_list":["post-17750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-air-force","tag-moon","tag-xcraft","tag-xplore"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}