Could the moon ever be blockaded? Experts predict cislunar space could be the next Strait of Hormuz

The ongoing military conflict regarding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz may well mirror a future situation off-Earth — the use of cislunar space, the region between the moon and our planet.

Space Force sets up ‘cislunar coordination’ office to focus beyond Earth orbit

Officials say civil-military overlap with NASA grows as lunar activity accelerates The post Space Force sets up ‘cislunar coordination’ office to focus beyond Earth orbit appeared first on SpaceNews.

Cislunar Key Region Surveillance Optimization - The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences

Cislunar space’s growing importance necessitates robust space domain awareness for its safe and sustainable utilization. Current ground-based surveillance is insufficient to cover the entire Cislunar region of interest, leaving large blind spots. Space-based optical sensors can address this, but due to the vastness of the Cislunar space, sensor placement is challenging. With limited resources, identifying and prioritizing regions of interest for space object custody is crucial. This paper proposes an optimized sensor distribution strategy for Cislunar Space Domain Awareness (CSDA), to maintain custody of objects of interest in the $$L_2$$ L 2 Lyapunov and Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHO), able to perform maneuvers at unknown times. As examples, this work focuses on identifying the key regions spanned by these maneuvering objects in $$L_2$$ L 2 Lyapunov and Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits, with maneuver sizes of 0.05 km/s $$\Delta v$$ Δ v to 0.5 km/s $$\Delta v$$ Δ v . Using dynamical deviation flow in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP), critical surveillance regions are identified. The optimal sensor locations are determined by optimizing surveillance coverage for maintained custody using visibility maps.

High-precision Relativistic Timescales for Cislunar Navigation

High-precision Relativistic Timescales for Cislunar Navigation, Turyshev, Slava G.

Bluesky

With successful airlock test, Lockheed Martin invests in inflatable space structures

Inflatable space structures are an increasingly popular idea being embraced and tested by a number of companies, including Lockheed Martin.