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Aerospace
Special Issues
Space Navigation and Control Technologies (2nd Edition)
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Space Navigation and Control Technologies (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2026 | Viewed by 458

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xin Ma

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Instrumentation and Optoelectronic Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Interests: space navigation technologies; celestial navigation; pulsar navigation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Wei Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, No. 3888 Yuanjiang Road, Minhang District, Shanghai, China
Interests: spacecraft navigation and control; deep-space exploration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Dongyu Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Cyber Science and Technolgoy, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Interests: UAV intelligent and application
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Space exploration is an important direction for human spaceflight activities in the new era, and it represents an inevitable means for human beings to explore the unknown universe. Navigation technology realizes the localization of moving objects by measuring position parameters. Control technology is at the core of a spacecraft's ability to independently perform complex tasks in a space environment. Space navigation and control technology play a crucial role, which is conducive to promoting the sustainable development of space technology and enhancing the ability of human beings to enter space. With the development of deep space navigation technology, requirements for precise, real-time, and visible navigation and control are becoming more intense.

This Special Issue of Aerospace will introduce the latest developments in the field of deep space navigation and control technology and will provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to discuss cutting-edge technologies and key challenges in the field of space navigation and control technologies. We invite submissions from academia and industry professionals on theoretical and practical issues related to space navigation and control technologies. We also welcome articles on other topics related to aerospace systems.

Dr. Xin Ma
Prof. Dr. Wei Zhang
Dr. Dongyu Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • autonomous navigation
  • integrated navigation
  • celestial navigation
  • pulsar navigation
  • optical navigation
  • maneuver control
  • networked spacecraft cooperation
  • adaptive systems
  • robotic control

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2082 KB  
Article
Adaptive Robust Cubature Filtering-Based Autonomous Navigation for Cislunar Spacecraft Using Inter-Satellite Ranging and Angle Data
by Jun Xu, Xin Ma and Xiao Chen
Aerospace 2026, 13(1), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace13010100 - 20 Jan 2026
Viewed by 106
Abstract
The Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) technique enables cislunar spacecraft to obtain accurate position and velocity information, allowing full state estimation of two vehicles using only inter-satellite range (ISR) measurements when both their dynamical states are unknown. However, its stand-alone use [...] Read more.
The Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) technique enables cislunar spacecraft to obtain accurate position and velocity information, allowing full state estimation of two vehicles using only inter-satellite range (ISR) measurements when both their dynamical states are unknown. However, its stand-alone use leads to significantly increased orbit determination errors when the orbital planes of the two spacecraft are nearly coplanar, and is characterized by long initial convergence times and slow recovery following dynamical disturbances. To mitigate these issues, this study introduces an integrated navigation method that augments inter-satellite range measurements with line-of-sight vector angles relative to background stars. Additionally, an enhanced Adaptive Robust Cubature Kalman Filter (ARCKF) incorporating a chi-square test-based adaptive forgetting factor (AFF-ARCKF) is developed. This algorithm performs adaptive estimation of both process and measurement noise covariance matrices, improving convergence speed and accuracy while effectively suppressing the influence of measurement outliers. Numerical simulations involving spacecraft in Earth–Moon L4 planar orbits and distant retrograde orbits (DRO) confirm that the proposed method significantly enhances system observability under near-coplanar conditions. Comparative evaluations demonstrate that AFF-ARCKF achieves faster convergence compared to the standard ARCKF. Further analysis examining the effects of initial state errors and varying initial forgetting factors clarifies the operational boundaries and practical applicability of the proposed algorithm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Space Navigation and Control Technologies (2nd Edition))
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