NewzVille Science Desk
Can you believe to get GPS signals from the Moon to earth? It made possible by the NASA Scientists.
NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on 03 March, when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface.
The LuGRE payload’s success in lunar orbit and on the surface indicates that signals from the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) can be received and tracked at the Moon.
These results mean NASA’s Artemis missions, or other exploration missions, could benefit from these signals to accurately and autonomously determine their position, velocity, and time. This represents a steppingstone to advanced navigation systems and services for the Moon and Mars.
“LuGRE shows us that we can successfully acquire and track GNSS signals at the Moon. This is a very exciting discovery for lunar navigation, and we hope to leverage this capability for future missions.” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN Program.
The road to the historic milestone began on 02 March, when the Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the Moon and delivered LuGRE, one of 10 NASA payloads intended to advance lunar science.
Soon after landing, LuGRE payload operators at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began conducting their first science operation on the lunar surface.
With the receiver data flowing in, anticipation mounted. Could a Moon-based mission acquire and track signals from two GNSS constellations, GPS and Galileo, and use those signals for navigation on the lunar surface?
Then, at 2 a.m. EST on 03 March, it was official: LuGRE acquired and tracked signals on the lunar surface for the first time ever and achieved a navigation fix — approximately 225,000 miles away from Earth.
Now that Blue Ghost is on the Moon, the mission will operate for 14 days providing NASA and the Italian Space Agency the opportunity to collect data in a near-continuous mode, leading to additional GNSS milestones. In addition to this record-setting achievement, LuGRE is the first Italian Space Agency developed hardware on the Moon, a milestone for the organization.
Traditionally, NASA engineers track spacecraft by using a combination of measurements, including onboard sensors and signals from Earth-based tracking stations. The LuGRE payload demonstrates that using GNSS signals for navigation can reduce reliance on human operators because these signals can be picked up and used autonomously by the spacecraft, even as far away as the Moon.
NASA engineers track spacecraft normally using a combination of measurements, including onboard sensors & signals from Earth-based tracking stations
