British engineers are now testing a system that will allow GPS navigation to operate on the moon ahead of a demonstration mission in 2024.
NaviMoon technology, developed by Swiss company Space PNT for the European Space Agency (ESA), which sponsored the mission, has been hailed as an advance in lunar navigation.
“Today, to determine the position of the spacecraft on the Moon, we used a parabolic antenna found on Earth,” Cyril Butyron, CEO and co-founder of Space PNT, told Space.com. “But as the Earth rotates, you need a lot of stations, as well as some pretty expensive satellite technology. Using a simple GPS receiver would make the process a lot cheaper.”
However, operating a GPS on the Moon is no small feat. There are currently 31 satellites in the US GPS constellation orbiting Earth at an altitude of 12,540 miles (20,180 km), along with 22 European Galilean satellites at an altitude of 14,430 miles (23,222 km). The moon, however, is an average of 239,220 miles (385,000 km) away from Earth. Also, GPS and Galileo navigation satellites are destined to send their signals to the planet, so anything that reaches the moon is just a “stretch,” Butyron said.
However, engineers believe that NaviMoon will be able to pinpoint the position of satellites orbiting the Moon with an accuracy of 330 feet (100 meters), which is better than current technology can achieve.
“The signal is 1,000 times weaker than that on Earth,” Butyron said. “Besides, the signal only comes from one side, while on Earth, you’re surrounded by those satellites on all sides.”
Using the NaviMoon system, engineers can virtually extend GPS coverage to the lunar surface. First, they used the NaviMoon system on the satellite to locate the satellite, then sent a signal to the spacecraft and astronauts on the surface. With a constellation of four or five such satellites, Butyron said, they could achieve full coverage, including the dark side of the moon.
“What this technology can basically do is find satellites orbiting the moon, and then those satellites will act as GPS or Galileo satellites for lunar users,” Buteron said. “Already a small constellation of four or five satellites will be sufficient to provide good services to lunar users to support moon landings, moon launches and lunar operations.”
Space PNT recently delivered an engineered model of the NaviMoon receiver to Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) in the UK, which is building the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft. The NaviMoon engineering model is a functional replica of the flight model and will be used for testing before the flight model is shipped, later this year.
The mission, billed as the first step towards creating a communications and navigation network around the Moon, is expected to launch in late 2024 or early 2025, according to Nelly Offord, director of business development for the Lunar Pathfinder mission at SSTL. In addition to NaviMoon, the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft will carry a suite of communications systems that SSTL plans to use to sell services to users including space agencies and commercial companies preparing to operate their vehicles on the Moon.
“It can transmit images taken by lunar rover, recorded scientific data, and any kind of data that customers want to retrieve from the lunar surface or orbit,” Offord said.
News summary:
- This discovery will allow the Global Positioning System (GPS) to operate on the Moon
- Check all the latest news and articles space news update.
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