NASA IS Developing GPS For Moon To Help Astronauts Navigate

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has become an integral part of our daily lives. The system is used across the globe to find locations. It also helps prevent car thefts and makes mappings and surveys easier. Now, NASA is planning to develop a GPS system for the Moon which will help the crew during the Artemis missions.

The space agency is working on a device that would receive signals emitted by the 24 to 32 global positioning satellites. The same satellites make for the system on the Earth. GPS is operated by the US Military and can be accessed by anyone on Earth.

A GPS system on the Moon will help the astronauts navigate on the lunar surfaces and will help ground controllers who track spacecraft from Earth. NASA is said to working on this technology for the past decade and has successfully managed to develop a GPS system for half the distance to the Earth's natural satellite, as a part of its MMS Mission.

"We're using infrastructure that was built for surface navigation on Earth for applications beyond Earth. In fact, with MMS, we're already nearly half way to the Moon," said Jason Mitchell, the chief technologist Goddard's Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division.

However, the team will face a lot of challenges to develop a GPS system for the Moon. Since the Moon is very far away from the Earth, it would be difficult to operate the system remotely. The scientists are trying to amplify MMS's onboard GPS system rather than developing a new system from scratch.

The space agency will have to develop a few new devices like high-gain antenna and an enhanced clock. NASA hopes to complete the prototype of the system soon. The GPS system will also help reducing the bandwidth used for communicating with spacecraft from Earth.

Besides, NASA has shortlisted eight new research teams that will work closely on research about the Moon. The research will also include near-Earth asteroids, and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.