Cislunar Exploration: Challenges and Opportunities – Online Short Course (Starts 3 Mar 2025) 3 March - 17 March 2025 Online

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  • From 3–17 March 2025 (2.5 Weeks, 5 Lectures/Classes, 10 Total Hours)
  • Every Monday and Wednesday at 1–3 p.m. Eastern Time (all sessions will be recorded and available for replay; course notes will be available for download)
  • We are going back to the Moon… learn about the meaning of this endeavor for spacefaring countries, and how sustained presence on another celestial body is more than just a technical challenge.
  • All students will receive an AIAA Certificate of Completion at the end of the course.

OVERVIEW
The return to the Moon has begun. And it is no longer the Apollo Era, characterized by short missions to the Moon led by NASA astronauts. Current US, international, and commercial crewed and uncrewed mission plans will be challenged by multiple hurdles that were not faced before, including regulatory, habitat, mining, and navigation and positioning. This course aims to present a few key challenges related to the return to the Moon and beyond that are often sidelined. For example, there are many efforts on navigation, tracking and custody maintenance for objects in cislunar space, but we do not yet have a common reference frame to use. In this course, we will explore possible impacts from establishing sustained presence on the Moon, such as law enforcement, positioning, and space weather. Topics to be discussed:

  • Cislunar Challenges Overview: this introductory class aims to present the challenges of cislunar space, from launch to sustained presence and all of their implications. The goal is to highlight challenges that are often neglected, but are yet important, in addition to tackling well-known difficulties, such as navigation.
  • Mapping the Moon for Improved Lunar Navigation: A Geodesy and Geophysics Perspective: This section will examine the Moon's exploration through the lens of geodesy and geophysics, with a particular emphasis on the historical development of the infrastructure that enables lunar navigation. We will discuss the role of lunar laser reflection, satellite altimetry, and satellite gravimetry missions in mapping the Moon's position, orientation, topography, and gravity, and how these measurements are influenced by the properties of the lunar interior. We will also explore the active geophysical and surface processes that continue to change the Moon’s surface and their implications for future lunar explorers.
  • Space Weather: introduction to Space Weather, focusing on Space Weather Phenomena and the impacts associated with these phenomena.
  • Space Law: this deep-dive class will highlight and explain the international laws governing cislunar activities - which, while broad in nature, and nevertheless binding on all national activities, including private activities. This two-hour lecture will focus on the current international and national legal regime governing cislunar activities, as found in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and subsequent international treaties. Rather than going over, article by article, these binding legal instruments, this lecture will discuss what behavior is prohibited, prohibited unless permitted by a national license, permissory, or mandatory—as well as what activity is not currently regulated, or instances where the law is vague and unclear. These rules govern everything from peaceful civil and scientific activities to security aspects of cislunar activities.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of the course series, the attendee should:

  • Understand the complexity of cislunar space, both on a technical level and regulatory level
  • Be able to identify the current gaps in technology and policy
  • Gain an appreciation of a collaborative and cooperative approach to solving the challenges of cislunar
  • Understand the complexity of geodesy and geophysics to accurately map the Moon
  • Perceive the significance of space weather on Earth and how it extends to lunar and cislunar missions.
  • Understand the complex legal framework surrounding space, and in particular, the cislunar region.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
This course is intended for students and professionals seeking to understand select challenges of the new space era and what the return to the Moon truly entails. The course is particularly suited to those in the broader aerospace community having limited familiarity with cislunar space and the new commercial space sector.

COURSE FEES (Sign-In To Register)
- AIAA Member Price: $695 USD
- Non-Member Price: $895 USD
- AIAA Student Member Price: $395 USD

CLASSROOM HOURS / CEUs: 10 classroom hours / 1.0 CEU/PDH

CANCELLATION POLICY: A refund less a $50.00 cancellation fee will be assessed for all cancellations made in writing prior to 5 days before the start of the event. After that time, no refunds will be provided.

CONTACT: Please contact Lisa Le or Customer Service if you have any questions about the course or group discounts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Outline

1. Cislunar Challenges Overview (3/3/2025 and 3/5/2025)

  • Introduction and Definitions
  • Launching to the Moon
    • Launch Constraints
    • Launch Window Opportunities
    • Orbital Debris and Risk/Consequence to Missions
    • Launch Collision Avoidance Analysis
  • Traffic in Cislunar Space
    • Introduction
    • Cislunar Space Sensing Challenges
    • Current Efforts
  • At the Moon: Lunar Resources
    • Scientific Context
    • The Artemis Plan
    • Recommendations
  • Other Challenges (high-level overview)
    • Space Weather
    • Space Health
    • Law Enforcement
    • Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center/AIAA

2. Mapping the Moon for Improved Lunar Navigation: A Geodesy and Geophysics Perspective (3/10/2025)

  • How measurements are influenced by the Moon Interior
  • Active Geophysical and Surface Processes

3. Space Weather and the Missions to the Moon (3/12/2025)

  • Intro to Space Weather
  • Where are we in Solar Cycle 25?
  • Space Weather Impacts
    • Moon
    • Artemis
    • Mars
    • NASA Moon to Mars office

4. Legal Considerations in Cislunar Space (3/17/2025)

  • Sources of space law
  • Logic of law (permissions, obligations, licenses, and prohibitions)
  • Permissions on the Moon
  • Obligations on the Moon
  • Licenses on the Moon
  • Prohibitions on the Moon
  • Scenario 1 – Commercial and scientific activity
  • Scenario 2 – Security and enforcement on the Moon
  • Future of lunar governance (international and national norm building)
Materials

COURSE DELIVERY AND MATERIALS

  • The course lectures will be delivered via Zoom. Test your connection here: https://zoom.us/test
  • Access to the Zoom classroom will be provided to registrants near to the course start date.
  • All sessions will be available on-demand within 1-2 days of the lecture. Once available, you can stream the replay video anytime, 24/7.
  • All slides will be available for download after each lecture. No part of these materials may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, unless for course participants. All rights reserved.
  • Between lectures during the course, the instructor(s) will be available via email for technical questions and comments.
Instructors
Dr. Gabrielle Hedrick is an Aerospace Engineer at the MITRE Corporation where she focuses her research on space exploration, to include cislunar space and human space flight. She has a master’s degree in mining engineering, for which she spent a year mining gold in the Amazon Rainforest, a master’s degree in Planetary Sciences, focused on long-term planning for the NASA Mars rover Opportunity, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering with a dissertation centered around terrain-aware path planning for the NASA Mars Sample Return rover. She is also an Emergency Medical Technician, Hazardous Material Operator, and Firefighter in the state of West Virginia.

Michael Cook is currently a Space Weather Lead at MITRE. His career started as a Lead Space Weather Forecaster for the DoD Space Weather Operations Center at Offutt AFB. Before joining MITRE, he was a Research Scientist with the Space Radiation Analysis Group at NASA Johnson Space Center. He is passionate about communicating Space Weather and why it is relevant in our modern society.

W. Joseph Durkin IV is a solid Earth geophysicist with a background in remote sensing and applied geodesy. During his PhD at Cornell University 2015-2019, his research focused on using optical and SAR satellite imagery to track the kinematic and mass changes of Arctic glaciers and icefields and on using load-induced ground deformation to study the properties of the Earth’s upper mantle. Joe was awarded a Byrd Postdoctoral Fellow at Ohio State University between 2019-2021, where he researched the use of the Earth's deformation field measured with GNSS to track the mass changes of Antarctica’s glaciers and centers of major ice loss. Joe has worked at MITRE since 2021 where his research focuses on applied geodesy within the Position Navigation and Timing division.

Mr. Christopher Johnson is the Director of Legal Affairs and Space Law at the Secure World Foundation, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he co-teaches the Space Law Seminar. Mr. Johnson is also a Field Editor at the Journal of Space Safety Engineering, on the Board of Editors of the journal Air and Space Law, and serves on the US Board of Directors of the Space Generation Advisory Council. He has just begun a PhD program at Leiden University’s International Institute of Air and Space Law, writing a monograph on the international legal order for the Moon. Mr. Johnson has written widely on space law and policy issues, and represents the Secure World Foundation at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). 

 

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