Cislunar Communication Performance and System Analysis with Uncharted Phenomena

The Moon and its surrounding cislunar space have numerous unknowns, uncertainties, or partially charted phenomena that need to be investigated to determine the extent to which they affect cislunar communication. These include temperature fluctuations, spacecraft distance and velocity dynamics, surface roughness, and the diversity of propagation mechanisms. To develop robust and dynamically operative Cislunar space networks (CSNs), we need to analyze the communication system by incorporating inclusive models that account for the wide range of possible propagation environments and noise characteristics. In this paper, we consider that the communication signal can be subjected to both Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise, but also to different fading conditions. First, we analyze the communication link by showing the relationship between the brightness temperatures of the Moon and the equivalent noise temperature at the receiver of the Lunar Gateway. We propose to analyze the ergodic capacity and the outage probability, as they are essential metrics for the development of reliable communication. In particular, we model the noise with the additive symmetric alpha-stable distribution, which allows a generic analysis for Gaussian and non-Gaussian signal characteristics. Then, we present the closed-form bounds for the ergodic capacity and the outage probability. Finally, the results show the theoretically and operationally achievable performance bounds for the cislunar communication. To give insight into further designs, we also provide our results with comprehensive system settings that include mission objectives as well as orbital and system dynamics.

Secure and Robust Communications for Cislunar Space Networks

There is no doubt that the Moon has become the center of interest for commercial and international actors. Over the past decade, the number of planned long-term missions has increased dramatically. This makes the establishment of cislunar space networks (CSNs) crucial to orchestrate uninterrupted communications between the Moon and Earth. However, there are numerous challenges, unknowns, and uncertainties associated with cislunar communications that may pose various risks to lunar missions. In this study, we aim to address these challenges for cislunar communications by proposing a machine learning-based cislunar space domain awareness (SDA) capability that enables robust and secure communications. To this end, we first propose a detailed channel model for selected cislunar scenarios. Secondly, we propose two types of interference that could model anomalies that occur in cislunar space and are so far known only to a limited extent. Finally, we discuss our cislunar SDA to work in conjunction with the spacecraft communication system. Our proposed cislunar SDA, involving heuristic learning capabilities with machine learning algorithms, detects interference models with over 96% accuracy. The results demonstrate the promising performance of our cislunar SDA approach for secure and robust cislunar communication.