Feasibility analysis of GNSS-based navigation for LUMIO mission

Abstract

AbstractThe paper presents the design of a realistic model of the GNSS constellations GPS and Galileo to perform a navigation performances analysis in lunar environment. Starting from the visibility analysis, the link-budget of each visible GNSS spacecraft is estimated using for each one realistic data for the transmitted power and environmental and system parameters. The navigation performances are evaluated in this scenario. The model implemented is applied to the trajectory of the LUMIO CubeSat mission and the results are commented. LUMIO is a lunar CubeSat mission, on a Halo orbit at the L2 point of the Earth–Moon system, designed to observe the measured meteoroid impacts on the far side of the Moon. LUMIO has been designed to perform autonomous onboard navigation with an accuracy better than 30 km for more than 99.7% of the time. The navigation analysis in this work can be compared to such a requirement to evaluate if a GNSS-based navigation solution could be employed as well.