Endurance Mission-Level Simulation Architecture for Autonomy Development

The Endurance mission concept is a lunar sample-return mission that comprises a long-range traverse from the middle of the South-pole Aitken basin to the South Pole to collect samples from sites of high science value along the route. The samples would be returned to Earth by Artemis astronauts. This paper presents the design and development of a mission-level simulation for the Endurance mission concept, which allows us to mature the concept of operations (ConOps) and understand the need and range of onboard autonomous functions and ground operations tools. Simulation results help us understand the global traverse duration and improve inefficiencies in the current ConOps using some degree of onboard autonomy.