Philip Linden and Ashley Kosak | From Epoch to Ecosystem: An open, incremental approach to growing robust lunar PNT networks
Foresight Institute’s Space Group
From Epoch to Ecosystem: An open, incremental approach to growing robust lunar PNT networks
Abstract: Large-scale space capabilities rarely emerge fully formed. As constrained, standardized building blocks gain relevance through repetition, interoperability, and declining marginal cost, progress is driven less by individual platform performance and more by the accumulation of flight heritage and the stabilization of interfaces. Once a critical mass is reached, these architectures rapidly transition from experimental curiosities to default infrastructure. This pattern has appeared in multiple domains of space systems engineering, including CubeSats, where early emphasis on openness, standardization, and robust foundations proved more durable than early optimization for peak capability and ushered in a paradigm shift in satellite operations. Epoch reframes lunar timekeeping from a specialized subsystem into shared, enabling infrastructure. By combining well understood physics, flight proven synchronization techniques, accessible hardware, and open interoperability principles, Epoch provides a practical path for missions to achieve autonomy today while contributing to a resilient lunar PNT ecosystem tomorrow. The result is not a single authoritative clock or constellation, but a network of independently validated nodes whose collective behavior strengthens with each deployment. As lunar activity scales, this incremental, flight-proven approach offers a durable foundation for coordination, navigation, and reference time beyond Earth orbit. Epoch complements emerging lunar interoperability efforts such as the NASA LunaNet framework and related international navigation initiatives. Rather than competing with future lunar navigation services, Epoch provides a practical near term bridge. It enables missions to operate autonomously today while remaining compatible with shared infrastructure as it emerges, and it retains long term value as a resilience and holdover layer even once external services mature.
Bio:
Philip Linden is a space systems engineer focused on spacecraft operations, imaging systems, and onboard autonomy. He currently works at Planet, where he develops automated commanding and anomaly response systems for the SkySat constellation, specializing in imaging hardware, optical performance, and mission operations at fleet scale.
His experience spans on orbit operations, hardware in the loop testing, imaging calibration, and spacecraft concepts of operations, with prior roles in electro optical engineering at Lockheed Martin and spacecraft structures at SpaceX. Philip is also a Research Fellow with the Open Lunar Foundation, where his work explores precision timekeeping and coordination using open interfaces, accessible hardware, and flight proven techniques to enable scalable and resilient space systems.
Ashley Kosak is a technical operations and infrastructure leader focused on building reliable, interoperable hardware systems. She has over a decade of experience scaling complex physical systems across aerospace, consumer electronics, and energy storage, with prior roles at SpaceX and Apple.
Her work spans launch operations, manufacturing and propulsion reliability, global hardware programs, and lab infrastructure, including building test environments, automating validation pipelines, and reducing downtime in high consequence systems. She is known for translating between engineering and operations to make ambitious, multi stakeholder systems executable.
Ashley is currently a Fellow with the Open Lunar Foundation, where she works on open, interoperable timing and coordination infrastructure for lunar and distributed space missions. Her work centers on applying open hardware principles to systems that must scale incrementally, operate autonomously, and remain resilient over long lifetimes
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