WASHINGTON -NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on March 3 when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface, Katherine Schauer writes for NASA. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
6 March 2025 - The LuGRE payload’s success in receiving and tracking GNSS signals on the Moon marks a major milestone in space navigation. This achievement suggests that future missions, including NASA’s Artemis program, could leverage these signals for autonomous positioning, velocity, and timekeeping, paving the way for advanced lunar and Martian navigation systems.
"On Earth we can use GNSS signals to navigate in everything from smartphones to airplanes," said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) 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."
Developed collaboratively by NASA, the Italian Space Agency, Qascom, and Politecnico di Torino, LuGRE is funded under NASA’s SCaN Program and delivered via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.
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Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics
