Warren Soh, Honeywell Aerospace; Emma Ellsworth, Honeywell Aerospace; Udai Bindra, Honeywell Aerospace; Edgar Madril, Honeywell Aerospace; Jeff McDonald, Honeywell Aerospace; Xia Wu, Honeywell Aerospace
https://doi.org/10.64861/BYIS1235
Keywords: Cislunar Space Surveillance, Space Debris, Orbit Trade
Abstract:
The proliferation of lunar missions by the end of this decade increases the likelihood of artificial debris accumulation in cislunar space. Space-based observers operating in this regime provide enhanced opportunities to detect and track resident space objects (RSOs), particularly near and above the lunar limb. Selection of an optimal observer orbit depends on several key observability metrics, including apparent brightness magnitude, number of observation opportunities, relative angular rates, revisit time, and long-term orbital stability.
Modeling the dynamics of debris populations in the cislunar environment presents a significant challenge due to the chaotic nature of the multi-body gravitational field. A pragmatic approach to preliminarily evaluating candidate observer orbits is to simulate the observability of a representative debris population occupying stable orbit families against a set of potential observer trajectories within the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP) framework over multi-day time horizons versus using computational expensive High-Fidelity Ephemeris force models.
The debris population was distributed across several stable orbit families, including northern-southern halo and butterfly orbits, distant retrograde orbits (DROs), east and west low prograde orbits, perturbing elliptical orbit, and low lunar orbits with varying altitudes and inclinations. Orbit families were generated using Ansys Systems Tool Kit (STK) Cislunar Orbit Designer (CODE), and subsequent batch propagation was performed using STK’s Astrogator with a single spacecraft sensor model incorporating a fixed field-of-regard (FoR), range constraints, and platform attitude dynamics.
Evaluation of the weighted observability metrics identified three leading observer orbit candidates: two low-altitude retrograde orbits and one elliptical orbit. The debris position covariance propagation using an extended Kalman filter, updated by the spacecraft angles-only measurement for the best candidate observer orbit, was further assessed using an independent Monte Carlo MATLAB script. The results demonstrate that a simplified CR3BP-based observability simulation can provide preliminary representative debris detection statistics and support rapid trade assessments of cislunar surveillance architectures while maintaining modest computational requirements.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2026
Track: Space Debris