Xplore wins award from Air Force to study navigational tools for moon missions

An artisti’s conception shows Xplore’s Xcraft with the moon in the background. (Xplore Illustration)
An artisti’s conception shows Xplore’s Xcraft with the moon in the background. (Xplore Illustration)

Seattle-based Xplore says it’s won an Air Force award to develop an architecture for keeping track of position, navigation and timing during missions between Earth and the moon.

  • The Air Force project is aimed at developing systems for position, navigation and timing, or PNT, that would extend a GPS-like tracking system to cislunar space — that is, the domain of space extending as far out as the moon. NASA’s initiative to put astronauts on the moon by as soon as 2024 has elevated the need for such systems.

  • Xplore has already been working on navigation-system technologies as part of the development effort for its Xcraft spacecraft, which is meant to take on missions to the moon as well as Mars, Venus, asteroids and other deep-space destinations. It’s one of the first commercial ventures to win an award in a new Air Force category focusing on cislunar operations.

  • “We understood the need to build navigation architectures beyond Earth orbit early in our development, and are proud that our thought-leadership has been recognized,” Lisa Rich, Xplore’s founder and chief operating officer, said in a news release. The privately held venture aims to have its first Xcraft launched as early as next year.

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source: yahoo.com