Abstract: Constellation rotation errors accumulating with time is a problem for the autonomous navigation constellation based on the cross-links.It is very difficult to keep the constellation autonomously operating for a long time.A new approach to solve the constellation rotation issue is using the X-ray pulsar navigation(XPNAV).When the X-ray photons from the pulsars are detected with the on-board detector,the pulse profile of the pulsar is folded and the image also obtained.And then pulse arrival time is recorded with the on-board atomic clocks.Moreover,the navigation parameters for the satellites,including the position,velocity,attitude and time,can be determined accurately by the data processing with the on-board computer.Since the X-ray signal from the pulsar provides an absolute space-time reference for the navigation satellites,consequently there is not the constellation rotation issue.The basic concept,system composing and geometric principle of XPNAV were described briefly.Especially,the adaptive Kalman filtering algorithms of the orbit determination and time synchronization for the navigation satellites were studied in detail.According to the numerical analysis results,the feasibility and rationality to solve the issue of the autonomous navigation constellation rotation using the X-ray pulsar is demonstrated.