Connor Segal, EO Solutions & Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Kevin Schroeder, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Keywords: Cislunar Space, Poincaré Map, Persistent Monitoring, Space Domain Awareness, Search
Abstract:
This study presents a methodology for enhancing ground-based Cislunar Space Domain Awareness (SDA) utilizing currently operational electro-optical (EO) assets. A reachability analysis of small-magnitude maneuvers originating from periodic orbits in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP) identifies crossing locations at a spherical distance of 4x GEO, and are utilized to generate Poincar´e maps. Two search areas are created to observe regions derived from these points, and are tailored to the observational constraints of the three GEODSS facilities. Simulations are conducted using the GEODSS sensors to search the generated areas, where performance is evaluated in an operational context and directly compared to a baseline of an all-sky, 4π steradian, search. Results show that observational capacity is primarily limited by the number of available targets, and the proposed methodology yields up to an 85.3% reduction in required search area, shrinking the search domain from 4π to 0.587π steradian. A practical extension of this methodology is explored through a GEO catalog maintenance scenario, where serendipitous acquisition of the 4× GEOtargets within the sensors’ fields-of-view were recorded, and the network captured up to 34.37% of the relevant targets within 24 hours. The findings of this study demonstrate that current EO systems can support Cislunar SDA in exclusive-use settings and, more significantly, as a secondary mission to GEO catalog maintenance; simultaneously enabling both GEO and Cislunar SDA.
Date of Conference: September 16-19, 2025
Track: Cislunar SDA