Control Towers as Multifunctional Structures for Lunar Surface Activity

NASA’s Artemis initiative aims to restart crewed missions to the Moon. These planned crewed lunar landings have sparked interest in continuously occupied lunar surface outposts. However, maintaining a sustained human presence on the lunar surface at a larger scale than ever before comes with challenges. First, due to the difficulty of sending large numbers of human astronauts to the Moon and supporting them, robots will be used for tasks such as geological exploration, prospecting, and infrastructure construction. Lunar support infrastructure is needed to provide detail ground situation awareness and services, including communication, coordination, Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), and lighting to ensure a system of system of robots, astronauts, surface vehicles, and landers. We extend the existing work by examining the performance of navigation beacons mounted atop self-deployable towers. Specifically, we first find practical placement of these towers, with considerations for lines of sight to users on the ground and task-specific factors. Using structural analysis, we determine the structural integrity of what is proposed. In this study, we propose and design a network of towers for performing surface domain awareness and providing services for surface assets. We extend the existing body of work on navigation for the lunar surface by examining the requirements in placement and structural design of the physical structure required to implement such a system.