“NASA and Italy Team Up to Pioneer Next-Gen Lunar Navigation Systems”

As the Artemis program advances humanity’s return to the moon and eventually Mars, NASA is enhancing its cutting-edge navigation and positioning technologies to lead a new chapter in lunar exploration.

A technology demonstration facilitating these advancements is the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) payload, a collaborative initiative between NASA and the Italian Space Agency aimed at illustrating the practicality of utilizing current GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals for navigation, positioning, and timing on the moon.

On its mission to the moon as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, LuGRE is set to demonstrate the acquisition and tracking of signals from both the U.S. GPS and EU’s Galileo GNSS constellations while en route to the moon, during lunar orbit, and finally for up to two weeks on the lunar surface itself.

The LuGRE payload is among the first demonstrations of GNSS signal reception and navigation on and around the lunar surface, marking a significant milestone for how lunar missions will utilize navigation and positioning technology.

If successful, LuGRE would confirm that spacecraft can leverage signals from existing GNSS satellites at lunar distances, thereby decreasing their dependence on terrestrial ground stations for lunar navigation.

Currently, GNSS constellations provide critical services such as navigation, banking, power grid synchronization, cellular communications, and telecommunications. Near-Earth space missions rely on these signals in-flight to determine key operational data such as location, speed, and time.

NASA and the Italian Space Agency aspire to broaden the applications of GNSS. In 2019, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission established a world record for the farthest GPS signal acquisition at 116,300 miles from Earth’s surface—close to half of the 238,900 miles separating the Earth and the moon. Now, LuGRE could potentially double that range.

“GPS enhances our lives, making them safer and more efficient here on Earth,” stated Kevin Coggins, NASA’s deputy associate administrator and SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As we endeavor to push humanity beyond our planet, LuGRE should verify that this remarkable technology can similarly assist us on the moon.”

Reliable space communication and navigation systems are fundamental to all NASA missions, fostering essential connections from space to Earth for both crewed and uncrewed missions. Utilizing a combination of government and commercial resources, NASA’s Near Space and Deep Space Networks facilitate science, technology demonstrations, and human spaceflight missions throughout the solar system.

“This mission represents more than a technological achievement,” shared Joel Parker, the policy lead for positioning, navigation, and timing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“We aim to facilitate more and improved missions to the moon for the benefit of all, and we wish to collaborate with our international partners.”

The data-collection LuGRE payload merges NASA-led systems engineering and mission management with receiver software and hardware developed by the Italian Space Agency and their industrial partner Qascom—the first Italian-made hardware to function on the lunar surface.

Any data collected by LuGRE is meant to pave the way for the application of GNSS across all lunar missions, not exclusively those led by NASA or the Italian Space Agency. Six months after the completion of LuGRE’s operations, the agencies plan to make the mission data public to broaden access to lunar GNSS research for commercial and public sectors.

“A project like LuGRE transcends NASA,” commented Lauren Konitzer, a NASA Goddard navigation and mission design engineer. “It’s for the benefit of humanity. We strive to demonstrate that lunar GNSS can function, and we share our findings with the globe.”

The LuGRE payload is one of ten scientific experiments scheduled for launch to the lunar surface with this delivery through NASA’s CLPS initiative.

Through CLPS, NASA collaborates with American companies to create delivery and quantity contracts for commercial deliveries aimed at advancing lunar exploration and establishing a sustainable lunar economy. By 2024, the agency anticipates having 14 private partners under contract for ongoing and future CLPS missions.

Demonstrations like LuGRE could establish a foundation for GNSS-based navigation systems on the lunar surface. Integrating existing systems with emerging lunar-specific navigational solutions could determine how all spacecraft traverse lunar terrain in the Artemis era.

The payload is a joint effort between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Italian Space Agency.