LONEStar: The Lunar Flashlight Optical Navigation Experiment

• Published in: The Journal of the astronautical sciences Vol. 71; no. 4; p. 33
• Main Authors: Krause, Michael, Thrasher, Ava, Soni, Priyal, Smego, Liam, Isaac, Reuben, Nolan, Jennifer, Pledger, Micah, Lightsey, E. Glenn, Ready, W. Jud, Christian, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 15.07.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aerospace environments; Aerospace Technology and Astronautics; Cameras; Earth; Earth-Moon system; Engineering; Experiments; Flashlights; Lasers; Localization; Lunar orbits; Mathematical Applications in the Physical Sciences; Mercury; Mercury (planet); Moon; Navigation; Optical instruments; Original; Original Article; Planets; Propulsion systems; Radiation; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Star trackers; Triangulation; United States > US; Georgia; Optical navigation; Triangulation; Space exploration; Image processing; Spacecraft operations
• ISSN: 2195-0571; 0021-9142; 2195-0571
• DOI: 10.1007/s40295-024-00452-9

This paper documents the results from the highly successful Lunar flashlight Optical Navigation Experiment with a Star tracker (LONEStar). Launched in December 2022, Lunar Flashlight (LF) was a NASA-funded technology demonstration mission. After a propulsion system anomaly prevented capture in lunar orbit, LF was ejected from the Earth-Moon system and into heliocentric space. NASA subsequently transferred ownership of LF to Georgia Tech to conduct an unfunded extended mission to demonstrate further advanced technology objectives, including LONEStar. From August to December 2023, the LONEStar team performed on-orbit calibration of the optical instrument and a number of different OPNAV experiments. This campaign included the processing of nearly 400 images of star fields, Earth and Moon, and four other planets (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). LONEStar provided the first on-orbit demonstrations of heliocentric navigation using only optical observations of planets. Of special note is the successful in-flight demonstration of (1) instantaneous triangulation with simultaneous sightings of two planets with the LOST algorithm and (2) dynamic triangulation with sequential sightings of multiple planets.