The NRL Program in X-ray Navigation

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development and applications of X-ray navigation technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, highlighting its evolution from early discoveries to recent space experiments and its broad potential uses.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of NRL's work on X-ray navigation, including experimental flights and the conceptual framework for various navigation applications.

Findings

First flight payload with explicit X-ray navigation theme (1999)

Continued NRL involvement in DARPA and NASA programs

Broad applicability of X-ray source observations for navigation

Abstract

This chapter describes the development of X-ray Navigation at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) within its astrophysics research programs. The prospects for applications emerged from early discoveries of X-ray source classes and their properties. Starting around 1988 some NRL X-ray astronomy programs included navigation as one of the motivations. The USA experiment (1999) was the first flight payload with an explicit X-ray navigation theme. Subsequently, NRL has continued to work in this area through participation in DARPA and NASA programs. Throughout, the general concept of X-ray navigation (XRNAV) has been broad enough to encompass many different uses of X-ray source observations for attitude determination, position determination, and timekeeping. Pulsar-based X-ray navigation (XNAV) is a special case.