NASA and the Italian Space Agency have conducted a demonstration where the Lunar Global Navigation Satellite System Receiver Experiment, or LuGRE, acquired and tracked Earth-based navigation on the surface of the Moon on March 3.
The agency said Tuesday the LuGRE payload, launched on March 2 aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, showed that the GNSS signals can be received and tracked on the Moon. It is the first technology demonstration to achieve the feat.
Pivotal Step for Moon and Mars Exploration
The results of the experiment showed that GNSS signals can be utilized for NASA’s exploration missions, particularly the Artemis program. The signals can be used to accelerate the development of navigation systems and other services for Moon and Mars missions.
Operators at Goddard Space Flight Center started the first science operation after LuGRE, one of 10 payloads NASA will utilize to advance lunar science, was deployed on the Moon. The signals were later acquired and tracked with a navigation fix of around 225,000 miles away from Earth. The mission will continue gathering data for 14 days with more GNSS breakthroughs expected.
“On Earth we can use GNSS signals to navigate in everything from smartphones to airplanes,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program. “Now, LuGRE shows us that we can successfully acquire and track GNSS signals at the Moon.”
