Cislunar space is the region beyond Earth’s orbit all the way out to the Moon. (Image: NASA)
WASHINGTON — While a new White House action plan for forwarding cislunar science and technology leans largely on NASA to lead the charge, it also taps the Defense Department to spearhead development of capabilities to keep watch on activity in the vast area of space between the Earth and Moon.
DoD, with the assistance of NASA and the Commerce Department, are tasked to “identify and prioritize research and development needed to support extension of U.S. SSA [space situational awareness] capabilities into Cislunar space, to include aiding planetary defense, improved debris population modeling, and detection, tracking, and characterization of satellites in the Cislunar volume,” according to the National Cislunar Science and Technology Action Plan [PDF].
This includes taking the lead in the development of new, and/or improvement of current, ground- and space-based sensors for monitoring the cislunar region. In particular, the plan notes that the Pentagon should assess the value of putting new satellites in “novel orbits” to monitor satellites and space debris near the Moon.
Senior leaders of US Space Command and the Space Force have long said that while not an immediate priority, the service sees future military activity in cislunar space as inevitable as commercial opportunities for exploiting the Moon and its environs become more feasible due to the march of technology. Indeed, the Space Force already has committed small amounts of early research funds to exploring how to monitoring satellites at the semi-stable Lagrange points between the Earth and the Moon.
DoD further is to spearhead efforts to “evaluate the efforts and technology gaps of commercial and international contributors” to cislunar SSA, as well as “identify and prioritize technology in support of the ground network and infrastructure, including processing, data management and exchange, and personnel needed to support and sustain” future cislunar SSA capabilities.
The White House S&T plan, along with a new policy on the establishment of “lunar reference systems” [PDF] was announced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Tuesday. Both are “actions to advance the goals” outlined in the November 2022 National Cislunar Science and Technology Strategy.
Lunar reference systems essentially are the models and tools needed to map the Moon’s surface and other geological parameters and create a time standard since time runs differently on the Moon due to the laws of physics — baseline science that enables positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) just as on the Earth. The policy creates an interagency task force, let by NASA and including DoD, to undertake the job.
Similarly, the Biden administration in April issued a policy and empowered a NASA-led task force “to establish time standards at and around celestial bodies other than Earth.”
Within the national defense community, it is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that is responsible for such activities. NGA on Tuesday announced the release of a new World Magnetic Model, “which is critical for keeping GPS accurate due to shifts in the earth’s magnetic field.”
The White House plan stresses that the goal of US cislunar policies and activities are aimed at developing the “infrastructure that will be necessary to sustain a global presence” — in line with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that prohibits any one nation from claiming territory in space or on the surface of celestial bodies.
“The United States is committed to the safe, transparent, and sustainable exploration and use of Cislunar space for peaceful purposes,” the plan states, noting that the plan itself “should be updated periodically to incorporate changing priorities, the perspectives of our international partners, and to remain aligned with the expanding pace of Cislunar development undertaken by all space faring nations and entities.”
However, the stability of that US commitment may be in question with the incoming Trump administration. For example, former Trump White House liaison to NASA Greg Autrey and former Republican congressman Robert Walker in August penned an op-ed in Space News that suggested abandonment of the Outer Space Treaty, considered the magna carta of space and signed by 137 of the 193 UN member states.
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