{"id":53917,"date":"2025-02-21T20:26:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T19:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asi.it\/?p=53917"},"modified":"2025-02-21T21:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:02:51","slug":"lugre-sets-another-record-first-gnss-signals-detected-in-lunar-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asi.it\/en\/2025\/02\/lugre-sets-another-record-first-gnss-signals-detected-in-lunar-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"LuGRE sets another record: first GNSS signals detected in lunar orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"
This recent operation demonstrated that the receiver could use GNSS signals even near the Moon<\/div>\r\n\r\n
New record for LuGRE<\/strong>. On February 19th, the receiver successfully acquired and tracked signals from GPS and Galileo satellites even in lunar orbit, at 63 Earth radii, approximately 401,814 kilometers from Earth<\/strong>.<\/div>\r\n
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LuGRE was developed in Italy by Qascom on behalf of the Italian Space Agency<\/strong>, in collaboration with NASA<\/strong> and scientific support from the Politecnico di Torino<\/strong>. The receiver is integrated into the commercial lander Blue Ghost 1, which Firefly Aerospace built in the United States as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.<\/div>\r\n
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The signal acquisition occurred in the L1\/E1 and L5\/E5 bands throughout the Blue Ghost 1<\/strong> lander’s journey to the Moon. The most distant GNSS satellite signal received was from the Galileo constellation, at a distance of 67.79 Earth radii, about 432,384 kilometers from the LuGRE receiver.<\/div>\r\n
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This recent operation demonstrated that the receiver could use GNSS signals even near the Moon, where the lander orbited in low lunar orbit at a speed of approximately 1.66 kilometers per second.<\/div>\r\n
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Despite the significant distance and high speed, the position was calculated with very high accuracy, with an error margin of about 1.5 kilometers for position and about 2 meters per second for velocity. Signals were successfully acquired from four GPS satellites on the L1 and L5 frequencies and from one Galileo satellite on the E1-E5 frequency bands during a one-hour time window.<\/div>\r\n
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Photo Credit: Firefly Aerospace<\/em><\/div>\r\n
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