Photo credit: www.nasa.gov
Historic Achievement: LuGRE Successfully Tracks GNSS Signals on the Moon
On March 3, NASA, in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency, marked a significant milestone in space exploration as the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology to successfully acquire and track navigation signals from Earth while operating on the Moon’s surface.
The successful operation of LuGRE indicates that Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals can be effectively received on the lunar surface. This advancement has profound implications for NASA’s Artemis missions and future lunar exploration, as it enables accurate and autonomous determination of position, velocity, and time in the Moon’s environment. This development paves the way for more sophisticated navigation systems, not only for lunar missions but also for potential Mars explorations.
“On Earth we can use GNSS signals to navigate in everything from smartphones to airplanes,” noted Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program. “Now, 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.”
Kevin Coggins
Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA SCaN
The path to this historic achievement began on March 2, with the landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander. This vehicle delivered LuGRE, one of ten payloads from NASA aimed at enhancing lunar science. Following the successful landing, operators at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, commenced the first scientific operations of the LuGRE payload on the Moon.
As data from the receiver was collected, excitement grew regarding the potential for a lunar mission to acquire and utilize signals from both the GPS and Galileo constellations for navigation purposes.
At 2 a.m. EST on March 3, the wait ended with news that LuGRE had successfully tracked signals on the Moon for the first time and achieved a navigation fix approximately 225,000 miles from Earth.
Operating for a duration of 14 days, the Blue Ghost will enable NASA and the Italian Space Agency to gather substantial data in nearly continuous mode, leading to further achievements in GNSS application. The LuGRE mission also represents a significant accomplishment for the Italian Space Agency, as it is their first hardware deployed on the lunar surface.
In addition to its historic milestone on the Moon, LuGRE also set GNSS records during its journey to the lunar surface. On January 21, LuGRE achieved the highest altitude GNSS signal acquisition ever recorded at 209,900 miles, surpassing a record previously held by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. Its altitude continued to increase as LuGRE reached lunar orbit on February 20 at 243,000 miles from Earth, indicating that cislunar space missions could also effectively utilize GNSS signals for navigation.
Historically, NASA relied on a combination of onboard sensors and signals from Earth for tracking spacecraft. The LuGRE payload exemplifies a shift towards leveraging GNSS signals, allowing spacecraft to autonomously obtain navigation data, which could significantly diminish the dependence on human oversight even at lunar distances.
The collaborative development of the LuGRE payload involved NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Italian Space Agency, with funding and oversight provided by NASA’s SCaN Program office. It was selected as part of ten research and technology demonstrations to be delivered to the Moon by Firefly Aerospace, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.
Learn more about LuGRE: https://go.nasa.gov/41qwwQN
Source
www.nasa.gov