GPS IN SPACE 8
GODDARD TECHNOLOGY BRINGS GPS NAVIGATION TO HIGH-ALTITUDE MISSIONS
PHOTO: The GPS receiver was developed for the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which studies the region surrounding Earth known as the magnetosphere. Credit: NASA/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith THE SPARK FALL 2020
When NASA astronauts first flew to the Moon in 1969, GPS didn’t exist. Through the Artemis program, NASA will return to the Moon in the coming decade, and GPS could serve as a valuable navigation tool for those missions. Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have developed a GPS receiver that can pick up GPS signals from Earth-orbiting satellites while more than 100,000 miles away, and the team is developing a next-generation technology that could make GPS navigation from the Moon possible.
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Launched in 2015, NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission landed in the Guinness Book of World Records by using GPS from an altitude of 116,300 miles, or halfway to the Moon. This impressive, record-breaking feat owes its success in part to the Navigator GPS receiver, a technology developed with high-altitude missions in mind. With the MMS mission, Goddard engineers successfully demonstrated the GPS receiver’s ability to navigate using GPS signals from farther distances than ever before. The MMS mission consists of four spacecraft that use GPS measurements to fly in formation and maintain orbit. 9
