A satellite navigation receiver designed in Italy for future missions to the Moon broke a new record last Wednesday (22), by capturing signals emitted 331 thousand kilometers away.
The milestone was achieved by LuGre (Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment), which is on board the Blue Ghost module, from the American company Firefly Aerospace and launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on January 14.
On the 17th, LuGre had already received signals from 200 thousand kilometers away, a number never before achieved, and now it renewed the mark by tracking five navigation satellites located 331 thousand kilometers away, three of which are from the GPS system (USA) and two from the Galileo network (European Union).
“The mission continues to achieve unprecedented results, confirming the feasibility of using the GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] constellation for navigation at a distance close to that of the moon,” said the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
LuGre could also become the first receiver of GPS and Galileo signals on the Moon, which is 384 kilometers from Earth. Blue Ghost is expected to orbit the moon until early March, when it will attempt a landing.
The instrument was built by the Italian company Qascom, based in Bassano del Grappa, in the north of the country, under order from ASI. The data obtained will be analyzed by the Polytechnic of Turin. (HANDLE)
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