Conceptual Navigation and Positioning Solution for the Upcoming Lunar Mining and Settlement Missions Based on the Earth’s Mining Experiences: Lunar Regional Navigation Transceiver System

Abstract

Precise drilling and excavation in future Lunar mining sites as well as in building habitats areas will be supported by robotized instrumentation. To ensure accurate positioning of facilities or structures, customized surveying instruments will be used to perform measurements needed for calculating locations of surveyed objects. Precise positioning in unexplored areas is difficult, even on the Earth, with all available support. This issue becomes even more complex on the Moon’s surface, considering environmental conditions and the absence of Earth logistics. This paper solves a problem of centimeter-precision positioning on the Moon’s surface. The solution is called Lunar Regional Navigation Transceiver System (LRNTS). It is based on a network of transceiver facilities, holding onboard both navigation transmitters and receivers. Transmitting modules of LRNTS act in the same way as the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) space segment, sending navigation messages to the receivers. Receiving modules are needed for self-calibration of LRNTS to calculate their coordinates. In this paper, 12 different LRNTS-simulated configuration setups within Shackleton Crater are tested against positioning accuracy and visibility along the crater. The results show that LRNTS of nine transceivers can achieve sub-centimeter horizontal and better than 2 cm vertical accuracy, with consistent visibility of six and more transceivers throughout the Shackleton Crater.

Editorial for Special Issue “Novel Methods and Applications for Mineral Exploration, Volume II”

“…These innovations are most noticeable in geophysical exploration, which, because of its high dependence on computational power, is the major beneficiary [2,3,6]. Clear opportunities for future developments and opportunities can be perceived, as well as for novel applications [11,12]. Interestingly, new understanding and novel methodologies allow us to re-visit and re-process historical geophysical data [7], which is, in itself, interesting and full of potential.…”

“…Finally, we come to a somewhat futuristic space exploration-related contribution (Ignjatović Stupar et al [12]). It describes, in considerable depth, a proposed Lunar Regional Navigation Transceiver System (LRNTS), to be used for the accurate-to the centimeterpositioning of facilities and structures that would be placed on the Moon's surface during a potential future settlement mission.…”