New York: One more step towards making the Moon habitable was achieved on Wednesday as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration used GPS on the Moon.
For the first time, signals from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) were received and tracked on the Moon.
NASA and the Italian Space Agency achieved the hitherto unthinkable milestone on March 3 when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) received and tracked GPS signals.
LuGRE was transported to the Moon on Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, which touched down on the Moon on March 2. LuGRE apart, Blue Ghost carried 9 other NASA payloads to the Moon.
The Artemis missions, NASA-led spaceflights to the Moon, and other exploration missions will now be able to use these signals to accurately and autonomously determine their position, velocity and time, according to NASA.
The Artemis programme’s ultimate aim is to establish human presence on the Moon. Lunar scientists are hopeful that these missions will pave the way for future Mars missions.
What are GNSS signals?
GNSS signals help transmit information about positioning, navigation and timing using radiowaves and are broadcast by satellites orbiting the Earth.
Among GNSS constellations provided by governments around the world are GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, and GLONASS.
