Deep-space navigation and flight dynamics
Navigation service that plots and steers the paths of spacecraft far from Earth. KinetX says it is the only private company to have navigated NASA missions to the Moon, Mercury and Pluto, and it helped OSIRIS-REx reach asteroid Bennu.
Why it matters
Getting a spacecraft to a small, distant target such as an asteroid takes very precise orbit work and many course corrections over years. Most of that skill sits inside government labs; KinetX offers it commercially, which matters as more private companies fly beyond Earth orbit.
How the technology works
Navigation teams combine radio tracking and optical navigation images to estimate where a spacecraft is, then plan trajectory correction maneuvers to keep it on course. KinetX supplies the analysts, flight dynamics software and ground tools, and has tested autonomous optical navigation in flight on NASA's LunaH-Map cubesat.
Sources
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