Information-Based Trajectory Planning for Spacecraft-to-Spacecraft Tracking and Navigation in Cislunar Space
Abstract
We present a trajectory planning method that balances information collection and control effort to improve cislunar spacecraft-to-spacecraft absolute tracking. Expanding use of cislunar space requires alternative navigation and tracking procedures that minimize reliance on ground-based support. Among efforts to address this need, spacecraft-to-spacecraft tracking exploits nonlinear dynamical tracers encoded in a series of relative measurements to infer absolute states of both an observer and a target. The geometry between spacecraft operating under this mode can significantly influence tracking performance. This work considers this geometrical impact by designing observer trajectories that jointly balance control effort and an information-theoretic quantification of the expected spacecraft-to-spacecraft tracking performance. Our methods are designed for multiple low-thrust observation platforms of various sensing modalities and can incorporate multiple space object targets in planning. By leveraging information gain in the optimal control problem, we report almost an order of magnitude improvement in the expected navigation and tracking errors for an optical observer operating in a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO). This work demonstrates the feasibility and value of information-optimal low-thrust spacecraft trajectory design for current and upcoming cislunar missions.
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BibTeX
@misc{wolf2026informationbased,
title = {{Information-Based Trajectory Planning for Spacecraft-to-Spacecraft Tracking and Navigation in Cislunar Space}},
author = {Trevor N. Wolf and Brandon A. Jones and Jay W. McMahon},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.19012},
eprint = {2609.19012},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19012},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Information-Based Trajectory Planning for Spacecraft-to-Spacecraft Tracking and Navigation in Cislunar Space
AU - Trevor N. Wolf
AU - Brandon A. Jones
AU - Jay W. McMahon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.19012
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19012
AB - We present a trajectory planning method that balances information collection and control effort to improve cislunar spacecraft-to-spacecraft absolute tracking. Expanding use of cislunar space requires alternative navigation and tracking procedures that minimize reliance on ground-based support. Among efforts to address this need, spacecraft-to-spacecraft tracking exploits nonlinear dynamical tracers encoded in a series of relative measurements to infer absolute states of both an observer and a target. The geometry between spacecraft operating under this mode can significantly influence tracking performance. This work considers this geometrical impact by designing observer trajectories that jointly balance control effort and an information-theoretic quantification of the expected spacecraft-to-spacecraft tracking performance. Our methods are designed for multiple low-thrust observation platforms of various sensing modalities and can incorporate multiple space object targets in planning. By leveraging information gain in the optimal control problem, we report almost an order of magnitude improvement in the expected navigation and tracking errors for an optical observer operating in a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO). This work demonstrates the feasibility and value of information-optimal low-thrust spacecraft trajectory design for current and upcoming cislunar missions.
ER -