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Campaign

Moonlight Initiative: Lunar Communications and Navigation Services (LCNS) Call for Ideas and Use Cases

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Jun 2, 2022
What would you do when Lunar Communications and Navigation Services (LCNS) will be available?
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BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

As of today, several dozens of commercial and institutional missions to the Moon are planned for the coming decades, exceeding the number of successful lunar missions during the space race in the 60s and 70s. One of the key differences this time is that a significant proportion of these missions are supported by private capital investments and involve players that are not traditionally associated with the space sector. 

In spite of the wide variety of missions planned for the Moon, a global lunar communication and navigation infrastructure is not available yet. As a result, every individual mission is currently planning its own custom solution for Direct-To-Earth (DTE) and/or own data relay communication and Earth-ranging based navigation; a duplication that is inherently inefficient and leads to complex and costly solutions for every mission. 

Communication and navigation capabilities are considered essential for sustained lunar exploration and could complement other services under development, including transportation, in situ resource utilisation (ISRU) and of course human missions. The availability of a lunar communications and navigation infrastructure would enable missions to be designed more cost-effectively and would stimulate new business models, thus encouraging further private investment.  

An accurate and reliable lunar communications and navigation service would allow missions to land wherever they wanted. Radio astronomers could set up observatories on the far side of the Moon. Rovers could trundle over the lunar surface more speedily. It could even enable the teleoperation of rovers and other equipment from Earth. 

Using a shared telecommunications and navigation service would reduce the design complexity of individual missions and make them lighter, freeing space for more scientific instruments or other cargo, making each individual mission more cost-efficient. 

Lowering the ticket price to lunar exploration could empower a wider group of ESA member states to launch their own national lunar missions. Even on a relatively low budget, an emerging space nation would be able to send a scientific CubeSat mission to the Moon, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. Commercial bodies could use innovative technologies developed for the Moon to create new services and products on Earth, which would create new jobs and boost prosperity. 

Last but not least, new downstream applications can be enabled by lunar communications and navigation services. A new frontier of the Lunar Economy can be initiated by the development of services in domains such as industrial manufacturing (chemical plants, mining, on site resource exploitation), or utility infrastructure, to support to exploration and exploitation of the lunar surface.

Services on Earth are another emerging area, regarding education, edutainment, infotainment, media and much more. Examples could be virtual reality games in which players manipulate lunar robots or applications to allow anybody in the world to see through the eyes of lunar astronauts. New forms of interactions could be allowed by innovative services that connects machines and humans between the lunar environment and Earth. Perhaps a new chapter for the Internet of Things (IoT) sector could take place on the Moon, where a network of robots, ‘smart’ devices and ‘smart’ infrastructures could be developed.

The younger generations could be drawn to STEM topics by connecting them to educative content in specific locations on the Moon or during crucial moments in the evolution of Lunar exploration.  

The opportunities are many and mostly still to be fully understood, identified and brought to reality.  

 

WHAT IS THE LUNAR COMMUNICATIONS AND NAVIGATION SERVICE (LCNS)?

 The Agency’s vision represented in the Moonlight initiative, is to enable the development of a European-led delivery of communications and navigation services that will support the next generation of institutional and private Lunar Exploration Missions, including enhancing the performance of those missions currently under definition.

ESA launched two parallel competitive preparatory activities that will study the feasibility for the implementation of a Lunar Communications and Navigation Service (LCNS) and define the required associated infrastructure.

Ultimately, the Agency’s ambition is to promote the consolidation of a European-lead service provider that can commercialise communications and navigation services on the cis-lunar region and contribute to boost a new lunar economy.

As part of the ongoing work, an LCNS mission and system baseline concept will be defined.

The figure below presents a notional preliminary top-level system concept for LCNS, reflecting a system decomposition, encompassing a Lunar Space Segment, Earth Ground Segment, Lunar Surface Segment and Lunar User Segment and reflecting the main interactions between the different elements.

 

It is important to note the diagram doesn’t prescribe the number of LCNS nodes (e.g. satellites) required, nor their location (e.g. orbits) or characteristics (e.g. size). Individual nodes could potentially be providing different capabilities and performances as autonomous nodes or integrated in other elements (e.g. hosted payloads).

Potential LCNS users can interact with the different LCNS segments for the service provision, including Lunar Space segment, Lunar Surface Segment and Earth Ground Segment (e.g. direct to Earth or Earth based GNSS).  Furthermore, the LCNS Earth Ground Segment could exploit the existence of the available SATCOM (space/ground) infrastructure. LCNS should provide the most appropriate end efficient connectivity path to the lunar users.

 

LCNS EXPECTED CAPABILITIES: COMMUNICATION SERVICES

The communications services intend to provide the following service types:

The following table characterises the main performances for the different communications services:

LCNS EXPECTED CAPABILITIES: NAVIGATION SERVICES 

The navigation LCNS navigation service is planned to be provided in two ways:

The following table characterises the main performances for the navigation services. It is important to note that, similarly to the communication services, the performances will depend on the specific LCNS implementation, so precise numbers cannot be provided at this stage. The performances listed below are provided in ranges and covers a potential initial phase up to a full LCNS deployment:

CALL OBJECTIVES

The objective of this Call for ideas is to inspire different types of potential lunar users to submit ideas for new use cases and applications that can be enabled and supported by the LCNS services under development.

The present Call for ideas is aimed at collecting new ideas, engage new users and open up new possibilities and opportunities for the new and diverse Lunar user community that is starting to emerge and that will be vital to build a sustainable future for Lunar exploration.

This Call allows the applicants to influence the definition and future roll out of LCNS and the overall Moonlight Initiative by proposing ideas of how to these services could be utilised and how they can support the future development of the Lunar Economy.

ESA will select the best ideas and use cases and invite the applicants to ESA establishments for dedicated 1-to-1 meetings and help them mature their ideas. On case-by-case basis, ESA will direct them to the most appropriate ESA programme or funding mechanism that could be suitable for them to advance their work.

Furthermore, selected applicants will be invited to the 2nd LCNS User Engagement Workshop, to be held in Q2/Q3 2022, and have the opportunity to present their ideas and use cases together with other future and potential users and with the two Industrial consortia working on the Phase A/B1 of LCNS.  

The best ideas will have the chance to be invited to take part to the ESA Lunar Forum, a permanent group made of international Moonlight stakeholders who share the common interest in the future of Lunar exploration and explore together new missions and LCNS concepts.

 

WHO SHOULD RESPOND TO THIS CALL?

  • Commercial users (i.e for profit entities within and outside the space sector)
  • Academic/scientific users (e.g. universities, R&D dept.)
  • Institutional users (e.g. space agencies, governments)
  • Anybody who has an idea for an use case/application for LCNS communication and/or navigation services

 

EXPECTED IDEAS 

ESA is looking for innovative ideas for application cases, at concept stage as well as at higher level of maturity, that can be enabled by the LCNS communications and/or navigation services.

These applications shall make use of the LCNS services to serve users’ needs within the lunar environment (lunar surface and/or lunar orbit) and/or to users located on Earth. Some of the presented application cases may be taken forward and integrated into mission concepts at the next ESA Council at Ministerial level.

 

Ideas could be related to any of the following topics - but are not limited to only these:

  • Demonstrating the feasibility of in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) in support of future human missions (e.g. water, oxygen, cryogenic propellants, metals). 
    • in-space manufacturing 
    • prospecting capabilities
  • Logistics 
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Navigation applications:
    • synchronization and timing applications
    • Enhancing safety (i.e. Search-and-rescue, alert and distress) 
  • Improved mobility
  • Scientific applications
  • Dust mitigation
  • Infrastructure construction and maintenance
  • Rocket refueling
  • Crops cultivation
  • Life-support
  • Media (e.g. streaming services, filming, etc.)  
  • Virtual and augmented reality 
  • Education 
  • Gaming, including infotainment and edutainment

 

Each idea should aim at supporting short-term and/or long-term human and robotic exploration of the Moon and the development of the Lunar economy. Prospective ideas should highlight the following:

  • What is the application?
  • Which LCNS services will you make use of?
  • Which problem does the application address?
  • What is the added value of the suggested applications in the context of sustainable exploration activities?
  • What are the potential showstoppers for the technical development?

 

PROCESS OF SELECTION

Ideas should be prepared and submitted as described in this document. Setting your idea as “Visible” on this Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) fosters discussion and maturation of your idea with contributions from the community. After the deadline, an internal ESA panel will review these ideas according to the criteria above-mentioned.

The proponents of the best ideas will be invited to pitch their idea to ESA experts at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands / European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany and to discuss their vision with experts and astronauts. Exclusive tour through the ESA facilities. Selected contributors will be invited to join the Moonlight User Form that helps ESA shape the Moonlight vision.

Depending on idea maturity and relevance to the ESA Space Exploration Strategy, several avenues could be also available as follow up opportunities:

Certain implementation schemes will be limited to ESA Member States.

 

TIMELINE OF THE CALL FOR IDEAS CAMPAIGN 

  • 28 October 2021: Call announced at the IAC 2021 
  • 10 January 2022: Call for Ideas opens
  • 30 April 2022: Idea submission deadline, start of the review
  • 2 May 2022: Authors notified of initial idea evaluation
  • 31 May 2022: First review outcomes, ideas selected for advancement
  • June 2022: Dedicated 1-to-1 meetings at ESA establishments

 

RELEVANT LINKS

 

 

Further to the general conditions: Everyone interested may participate in this Campaign; participation is not limited to entities registered in one of the ESA Member States, Associate Member States or Cooperating States.

Only ideas clearly addressing the Campaign subject are eligible. All ideas that do not comply will be archived and the author notified of this.

Relevant ideas previously submitted to other calls are also welcome.

Intellectual Property Rights: ESA does not expect the ideas to contain elements that are subject to non-disclosure obligations protected by intellectual property rights, or resulting in limitations for ESA's use in the frame of the internal review by the appointed evaluators. If authors nevertheless require additional non-disclosure arrangements before submitting their proposal, ESA is ready to discuss this upon specific request.

In addition to the provisions in the General Conditions of Use of the Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) (e.g. article VI) and the General Conditions of Participation to Campaigns and Channels organised by ESA in OSIP (e.g. article 4.3) any ideas will be excluded which:

  • violate fundamental laws of physics
  • do not show a minimum quality in the submission which includes scientifically proper citing and clearly stating objectives
  • do not clearly address the Campaign topic
  • do not make use of any space infrastructure or space data
  • contain misleading or wrong information

Ideas will be reviewed with regard to the following evaluation criteria: 

  • Implementation feasibility (30%) 

  • Innovation and novelty (30%) 

  • Best use of LCNS capabilities (20%)  

  • Socioeconomic impact (20%) 

Do you need help?

Campaign Manager - Francesco Liucci, INNOVATION MANAGEMENT OFFICER

Innovation Manager working in the Innovation and Commercialisation team within the Human and robotic Exploration Directorate at ESA. Responsible for developing and managing commercial public-private partnerships (PPP) between ESA and external entities aimed at commercialising products and services in the lunar exploration domain. Responsible for the coordination of Lunar Pathfinder project: a commercial Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) between ESA and Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) that will provide the first dedicated communication relay service on the Moon. 10 years+ experience in innovation and tech startups. Francesco has worked with and consulted tech companies, in particular startups working with satellite-enabled technologies (earth observation, satellite communications, positioning and navigation).

Background Information

Innovation Area

Human and Robotic Exploration

ESA’s Terrae Novae exploration programme is leading Europe’s human journey into the Solar system using robots as precursors and scouts. The Terrae Novae exploration campaigns are in full swing with the European Service Module soon propelling NASA and ESA astronauts on Orion to the Moon, ESA building habitation, refuelling and communication infrastructure for the first lunar space station, ESA landing the first life search rover on Mars, and ESA returning Mars samples collected by NASA in the most ambitious robotic exploration campaign ever attempted. Humankind will benefit from the new discoveries, ambitions, science, inspiration, and challenges.