01 / POSITION
Where am I?
Research into position estimation when familiar terrestrial infrastructure, continuous GNSS coverage or reliable external references are unavailable.
Cavigation · Research Outlook
Before humans,
we send systems.
Cavorion's near-term navigation research is centred on autonomous vehicles, robotic spacecraft and machine-operated missions. Human spaceflight remains an important long-horizon objective, but long-duration human survival beyond Earth is still a major unresolved challenge. Cavigation therefore begins by asking how a vehicle can navigate, orient itself, make decisions and continue operating when humans are not physically present.
Research Direction
Build navigation for the machine first.
The first Cavigation vehicles do not need to carry people. They need to understand position, direction, time, uncertainty and changing conditions well enough to operate independently across difficult environments.
This creates a practical research path: autonomous navigation first, increasingly capable robotic vehicles next, and only later navigation systems designed around sustained human presence.
Core research questions
Cavigation focuses on the navigation problem itself: how a vehicle knows where it is, where it is going, what it can trust and what to do when information is incomplete. The emphasis is on autonomy rather than constant control from Earth.
02 / ORIENTATION
Which way am I facing?
Methods for maintaining attitude, heading and environmental orientation using multiple references rather than depending on a single navigation source.
03 / TIME
When am I?
Timing, synchronisation, signal delay and astronomical reference as part of the navigation solution rather than as separate background utilities.
04 / AUTONOMY
What should I do next?
Navigation logic that allows a vehicle to assess uncertainty, select a route, respond to change and continue safely without waiting for immediate human input.
05 / RESILIENCE
What if a reference fails?
Redundant and cross-checked navigation methods designed to detect degraded, conflicting or missing information before it becomes a mission-level failure.
06 / INTERFACE
How does a machine explain itself?
Human-readable representations of autonomous navigation state, uncertainty and decisions so operators can understand what the vehicle believes and why.
A staged path toward human spaceflight
Cavigation does not need to solve crewed interplanetary travel first. The research can mature through increasingly demanding autonomous systems before humans depend on it in long-duration missions.
01 · EarthTest navigation, autonomy, timing and degraded-reference behaviour in terrestrial vehicles, simulations and remote environments.
02 · RoboticApply the same principles to uncrewed aerospace and spacecraft systems where communications delay and limited intervention become real constraints.
03 · AutonomousDevelop vehicles capable of increasingly independent navigation, route selection, orientation and mission continuation.
04 · HumanTranslate mature autonomous navigation into systems that support people once long-duration human presence becomes more technically and physiologically viable.
Cavion
Cavion is the working name for Cavorion vehicles and spacecraft that embody Cavigation research. A Cavion is not defined by one propulsion system, destination or physical form. It is defined by its ability to navigate, orient itself and operate with increasing independence.
VEHICLE CLASS
Autonomous by design
Cavion research begins with vehicles expected to make meaningful navigation decisions locally rather than functioning only as remotely piloted machines.
SYSTEM IDENTITY
Navigation as the core
The defining layer is Cavigation: position, orientation, timing, uncertainty and route intelligence integrated into one operational navigation framework.
LONG HORIZON
Robotic before crewed
Early Cavion concepts can remain uncrewed or machine-operated. Human-rated variants belong later, once navigation systems and human survival technologies have matured sufficiently.
Cavoriongevity addresses the separate human challenge: physiology, health, adaptation and long-duration survival. Cavigation addresses how the vehicle knows where it is and how it moves through an environment. The two research programmes can converge later without requiring either to wait for the other.
Navigation infrastructure and vehicles are separate layers.
Cavigation focuses on the intelligence carried by the vehicle. External reference infrastructure may eventually provide additional coordinates, signals or environmental context, but a Cavion should not depend on one external network in order to understand its basic navigation state.
Referencescelestial · inertial · environmental · external coordinate sources
→
Cavigationposition · orientation · timing · uncertainty · autonomy
→
Cavionautonomous vehicle · robotic spacecraft · future human-rated vehicle
This separation is intentional. Reference networks can strengthen a navigation solution, while Cavigation remains responsible for how the vehicle interprets, reconciles and acts on the information available to it.