Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The test version of a unique satellite navigation receiver has been delivered for integration testing on the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft. The NaviMoon satnav receiver is designed to perform the farthest ever positioning fix from Earth, using signals millions of times fainter than those used by our cellphones or automobiles.
“This engineering model of our NaviMoon receiver is the very first piece of hardware to be produced in the context of ESA’s Moonlight initiative, to develop dedicated telecommunications and navigation services for the Moon,” explains Javier Ventura-Traveset, Head of ESA’s Navigation Science Office and managing all ESA lunar navigation activities.
“It will be flown aboard the Lunar Pathfinder mission into orbit around the Moon, from where it will perform the furthest satellite navigation positioning fix ever made, at more than 400,000 km away to an accuracy of less than 100 m. This represents an extraordinary engineering challenge, because at such a distance the faint Galileo and GPS signals it makes use of will be barely distinguishable from background noise. This demonstration will imply a true change of paradigm for lunar orbiting navigation.”
[...] The washing-machine-sized Lunar Pathfinder is being built as a commercial mission by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, SSTL, in the UK. ESA is funding guest payloads for it including the 1.4 kg NaviMoon receiver that will be accommodated beside the spacecraft’s main X-band transmitter that links it with Earth.
[...] “In principle this could mean that future missions could navigate themselves to the Moon autonomously using satellite navigation signals alone with no help from the ground.”
ESA’s Moonlight initiative involves expanding satnav coverage and communication links to the Moon. The first stage involves demonstrating the use of current satnav signals around the Moon. This will be achieved with the Lunar Pathfinder satellite in 2024. The main challenge will be overcoming the limited geometry of satnav signals all coming from the same part of the sky, along with the low signal power. To overcome that limitation, the second stage, the core of the Moonlight system, will see dedicated lunar navigation satellites and lunar surface beacons providing additional ranging sources and extended coverage.
Lunar Pathfinder will be ready for launch at the end of 2024, offering near side, farside, orbit, and polar services to missions launching in the coming years, laying the foundations for a constellation of combined telecommunications and navigation satellites around the Moon.
“Our Moonlight initiative proposes the initial placing of three to four satellites in lunar orbit, offering at least five consecutive hours of service in any 24 hours, focused on the lunar south pole where most of the missions are initially planned,” adds Javier. “Our system is conceived to be expandable and the idea is to progressively enlarge the constellation, and most likely to also include surface beacons on the Moon. This will enable full coverage across the lunar surface, higher availability, and excellent accuracies – a great opportunity for Europe.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:11AM (1 child)
Given where the things are going, the Chinese will land on the moon before anybody else.
USA! USA!
Shit.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 27 2022, @06:25PM
Yep, they'll finally catch up to the Russians and Americans and can say they've been to the Moon. 50+ years after we did it. In the meantime, Musk will have finished his Starship and have started his Mission to Mars, if not his Mars colony.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:24AM
i like it when my pet spider tickles my ballsack.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:32AM
"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions.
In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency.
When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:39AM
Suck my cock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:48AM
engenders pictures of wallace and grommit, setting the spin cycle just so, for the best orbit oftheir new lunar Gouda Portioning Servicstem (patent pending)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @02:01AM
https://twitter.com/hackaday/status/1518726695959805955 [twitter.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @02:28AM
Plenty of reports that Russia (or someone) is currently jamming GPS in the European area (or other wise confusing GPS nav). Commercial planes have been warned not to rely on GPS. If it's strong enough to jam signals here, won't that also make it to the Moon?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday April 27 2022, @11:02AM
When will we see satellites using a Sat Nav to find their way around? Nominative determinism suggests it's overdue...