GPS & Galileo Nav Satellite Signals at The Moon | NASA & Italian Space Agency
An artist’s concept of the LuGRE payload on Blue Ghost and its three main records in transit to the Moon, in lunar orbit and on the Moon’s surface.
The joint NASA, Italian Space Agency, Qascom, and PoliTO LuGRE team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Artist’s concept rendering of LuGRE aboard the Blue Ghost lunar lander receiving signals from Earth’s GNSS constellations. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission on The Moon after March 2, 2025 landing. NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on March 3, 2025 when the Lunar global navigation satellite system (GNSS) Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first known technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface. These results suggest that Global Positioning System (GPS) and Galileo Earth satellite signals could be used by future exploration missions—like NASA's Artemis Program. Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA) and operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Program (EUSPA). The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned by the United States government. China is also planning to build a lunar satellite constellation to use its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System at the Moon. BeiDou is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned and operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
LuGRE represents a steppingstone to advanced navigation systems and services for the Moon and Mars. The road to the historic milestone began on March 2, 2025, when the Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the Moon and delivered LuGRE, one of ten NASA payloads intended to advance lunar science. Soon after landing, LuGRE payload operators at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began conducting their first science operation on the lunar surface.
“On Earth we can use GNSS signals to navigate in everything from smartphones to airplanes,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program. “Now, LuGRE shows us that we can successfully acquire and track GNSS signals at the Moon. This is a very exciting discovery for lunar navigation, and we hope to leverage this capability for future missions.”
Now that Blue Ghost is on the Moon, the mission will operate for 14 days providing NASA and the Italian Space Agency the opportunity to collect data in a near-continuous mode, leading to additional GNSS milestones.
The LuGRE payload also broke GNSS records on its journey to the Moon. On Jan. 21, LuGRE surpassed the highest altitude GNSS signal acquisition ever recorded at 209,900 miles from Earth, a record formerly held by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. Its altitude record continued to climb as LuGRE reached lunar orbit on Feb. 20—243,000 miles from Earth. This means that missions in cislunar space, the area of space between Earth and the Moon, could also rely on GNSS signals for navigation fixes.
Traditionally, NASA engineers track spacecraft by using a combination of measurements, including onboard sensors and signals from Earth-based tracking stations. The LuGRE payload demonstrates that using GNSS signals for navigation can reduce reliance on human operators because these signals can be picked up and used autonomously by the spacecraft, even as far away as the Moon.
The LuGRE payload is a collaborative effort between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the Italian Space Agency, their industry partner Qascom, and Politecnico di Torino. Funding and oversight for the LuGRE payload comes from NASA’s SCaN Program office. It was chosen by NASA as one of ten funded research and technology demonstrations for delivery to the lunar surface by Firefly Aerospace Inc., a flight under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.
The data-gathering LuGRE payload combines NASA-led systems engineering and mission management with receiver software and hardware developed by the Italian Space Agency and their industry partner Qascom.
Any data LuGRE collects is intended to open the door for use of GNSS to all lunar missions, not just those by NASA or the Italian Space Agency. Approximately six months after LuGRE completes its operations, the agencies will release its mission data to broaden public and commercial access to lunar GNSS research.
Image Credit: NASA/Dave Ryan
Article Credit: Katherine Schauer
Release Date: March 4, 2025
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