Rules of the Road: Engineers Have Built a Traffic Control System for the Moon

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

The saying "cleared for takeoff" has a whole different meaning in space:

Historically, humankind has sent only one thing to the moon at a time so that it has the whole metaphorical highway to itself. But NASA's planned moon base is expected to have a lot more concurrent traffic in the future, which means it's time to start writing rules for a busier road. Engineers from Texas A&M, Purdue and NASA's Johnson Space Center joined forces to help write some of those rules.

The system is outlined in a recent study, and it's a lot more complex than one would think. Gateway and other spacecraft orbiting the moon are expected to use the near-rectilinear halo orbit, which takes spacecraft around both poles of the moon.

This is pretty simple for a single space station like the now-defunct Gateway space station, for which this control system was designed, but it gets complicated quickly when you have the Orion crew capsule, uncrewed cargo ships and lunar landers all sharing the same orbit, thereby necessitating the need for an air traffic control system similar to an airport on Earth.

"Collisions and serious damages could happen. To ensure crew safety and mission success, effective traffic management in the NRHO is crucial," Diane Davis, associate professor of space engineering at Texas A&M and an author of the study, said in a statement. "The future of lunar explorations depends as much on the traffic management as it does on the rocket science."

[...] There isn't anything tangible that you can see with this traffic control system, but if you've ever flown in an airplane before, you have experienced it. Air traffic control on Earth is an intricate dance that helps airplane pilots know where to fly and where to land without colliding into other aircraft. That means managing holding patterns so airplanes don't collide midair, assigning runways and making sure the sky is clear for aircraft taking off.

The control system for the moon isn't much different in terms of basic functionality. Spacecraft coming and going might be headed for the surface or loitering around waiting for their chance to head back to Earth. These spacecraft have to be managed just like aircraft or they'll eventually crash into each other, which is about as devastating as you can imagine. They also have to conserve fuel to keep costs low.

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