Current Status and Development Trend of Frequency Resource Utilization in Cislunar Space

Frequency resources, as non-renewable strategic assets, play a vital role in supporting aerospace industry development. With lunar exploration and resource utilization emerging as a global priority, demand for cislunar frequency resources has evolved significantly. Originally serving limited exploratory missions and space research, these resources now face growing demands from large-scale projects including space infrastructure construction, in-situ resource extraction, and sustained manned/unmanned lunar operations. However, current international regulations severely constrain the availability of frequency resources for extensive lunar development, resulting in an increasingly acute supply-demand imbalance. Systematic analysis of space networks (frequency application data, including advance publication information, notification information, etc.) is conducted for the planning and on-orbit cislunar exploration missions, and a correlation between space networks and cislunar exploration missions is established. It is found that far more frequency resources are declared by China and the United States than by other countries, while declared assignments concentrate within S-band and X-band ranges. By studying the conformity of the declared frequency bands with the Space Frequency Coordination Group (SFCG) recommendation for lunar region frequency allocation, we find that more than 96% of the space networks listed in this paper contain at least one SFCG-recommended assignment, and the declared link types (such as earth-lunar orbit link, lunar surface-lunar orbit link, etc.) are also included in the SFCG recommendation. Based on calculations conducted on the self-developed frequency compatibility simulation platform, the quantitative interference analysis of typical lunar missions is carried out. The simulation result reflects that the co-band interference of the lunar orbit to the lunar surface link at the south pole of the moon is serious, and it is difficult to avoid the interference through spatial isolation. Based on the current space networks of cislunar frequency resources and quantitative simulation results, the follow-up suggestions for utilization of frequency resources in the fields of cislunar exploration, development and utilization are proposed, which provide a reference for the standardized and orderly implementation of future missions.