GPS on the moon: Spanish firm launches lunar navigation system
MADRID :Spanish technology company GMV has unveiled a GPS-like navigation system for the moon that aims to make lunar missions as intuitive as a drive across town with apps such as Google Maps or Waze.
Called LUPIN, the project is part of a programme by the European Space Agency to test new positioning, navigation and timing techniques as interest in lunar surface exploration picks up again, whether for scientific research, potential mining opportunities or even future tourism.
"With this software, we bring Europe closer to establishing a presence of humans on the moon and, potentially, this would be a stepping stone towards Mars exploration or human presence on Mars," Steven Kay, the project's director, told Reuters.
The new technology was put to the test in the otherworldly landscapes of Fuerteventura - one of Spain's Canary Islands - where GMV conducted field trials with the prototype in a part of the Earth that bears some resemblance to the lunar surface.
By using signals similar to GPS from moon-orbiting satellites, LUPIN would allow rovers and astronauts to pinpoint their location on the moon in real time.
Currently, navigating the Earth's largest natural satellite is difficult, as spacecraft on its surface have to rely on complex calculations and data relayed from Earth - which is neither quick nor precise.
"Communication depends on direct visibility with Earth or the use of relay satellites in lunar orbit, which create communicative shadow zones and latency times that hinder immediate decision-making," GMV said in a statement.
The lack of real-time updates on changes in the moon's terrain caused by recent impacts or lunar dust movements also hinder ground trips on the satellite.
The company wants to combine existing lunar cartography with information gleaned from moon-orbiting satellites targeting dark spots, such as the lunar south pole and the "far side", the area generally in shadow.
"We want these rovers to map the surface of the moon in a fast and safe way so that astronauts can return in a few years, work there and set up permanent bases," said GMV's head of strategy, Mariella Graziano.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
3 days ago
- CNA
Japan's ispace aims for historic lunar landing with Resilience lander
TOKYO: Japanese company ispace is set to attempt the lunar touchdown of its uncrewed spacecraft on Friday (Jun 6), two years after its failed inaugural mission, in a bid to become the first company outside the United States to achieve a moon landing. Tokyo-based ispace hopes to join U.S. firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace, which have accomplished commercial landings amid an intensifying global race for the moon that includes state-run missions from China and India. Resilience, ispace's second lunar lander, is expected to touch down on Mare Frigoris, a basaltic plain about 900km from the moon's north pole, at 4:17am Friday local time (1917 GMT Thursday) following an hour-long descent from lunar orbit, according to the company. In 2023, ispace's first lander crashed into the moon's surface due to inaccurate recognition of its altitude. Software remedies have been implemented, while the hardware design is mostly unchanged in Resilience, the company has said. NEW ATTEMPT AFTER PAST SETBACK Resilience carries a four-wheeled rover built by ispace's Luxembourg subsidiary and payloads worth a total of US$16 million, including scientific instruments from Japanese firms and a Taiwanese university. If the landing is successful, the 2.3m-high lander and the microwave-sized rover will begin 14-day exploration activities until the arrival of a freezing-cold lunar night, including capturing images of regolith, the moon's fine-grained surface material, on a contract with the US space agency NASA. Later on Friday, ispace will host a press conference about the outcome of the mission, according to the company. Shares in ispace more than doubled earlier this year on growing investor hopes for the second mission, before calming in recent days. Resilience in January shared a SpaceX rocket launch with Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, which took a faster trajectory to the moon and touched down successfully in March. Intuitive Machines, which last year marked the world's first touchdown of a commercial lunar lander, made its second attempt in March but the lander Athena ended on its side on the lunar surface just as in the first mission. Japan last year became the world's fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing after the former Soviet Union, the US, China and India, when the national Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) achieved the touchdown of its SLIM lander, yet also in a toppled position. Despite President Donald Trump's proposed changes to US space policy, Japan remains committed to NASA's Artemis moon program, pledging the involvement of Japanese astronauts and technologies for future lunar missions. Including one in 2027 as part of the Artemis program, ispace plans seven more missions in the US and Japan through 2029 to capture increasing demands for lunar transportation.
CNA
6 days ago
- CNA
Telefonica investigates potential cyberattack after release of data from Peru
MADRID :Spain's Telefonica said on Tuesday it was investigating a potential cyberattack after data allegedly belonging to one million of its customers in Peru was released on an internet forum. In April, the Spanish company sold its troubled Peruvian unit to Argentine company Integra Tec International for about 900,000 euros ($1.03 million). ($1 = 0.8768 euros)
CNA
28-05-2025
- CNA
Tools made of whale bones reveal inventiveness of prehistoric people
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abundant, followed by fin whales, gray whales, right or bowhead whales - two species indistinguishable with the analytical method used in the study - and blue whales. With seafaring capabilities by humans not developing until thousands of years later, the Ice Age hunter-gatherers who made these implements would have been unable to actually hunt whales for their resources in the Bay of Biscay, a gulf of the Atlantic Ocean. "These whales were likely opportunistically acquired from stranded animals or drifted carcasses, rather than actively hunted," said biomolecular archaeologist Krista McGrath of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, co-lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications. "The majority of the bones were identified from offshore, deep-water species - such as sperm whale and fin whale - which would have been very difficult to hunt for these prehistoric groups. And there is no evidence from this time period that they had the level of technology that active hunting would have required, like seafaring boats," McGrath said. The 71 whale bone artifacts analyzed by the researchers were found at 27 cave or rock shelter sites. The two oldest ones, both from the bones of fin whales, came from the Spanish Cantabrian sites of Rascaño, dating to about 20,500 years ago, and El Juyo, dating to about 19,800 years ago. The rough age range of the artifacts was from 14,000 years old to more than 20,000 years old, but most were 16,000 to 17,500 years old. The main raw material used to manufacture spear points at the time was antler from reindeer or red deer because it is less brittle and more pliable than land mammal bone. But whale bone offered some advantages, including its large dimensions, with some of the projectile points measuring more than 16 inches (40 cm) long, a size difficult to achieve using antler. "They can be very long and thick, and were probably hafted on spear-style projectiles rather than arrows. They are usually found as fragments, many of which bear fractures related to use, and they were most likely used to hunt the main game animals of the time - reindeer and red deer, horse, bison and ibex," said archaeologist and study co-senior author Jean-Marc Pétillon of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Bone tools were used by members of the human evolutionary lineage dating back far before our species Homo sapiens emerged more than 300,000 years ago in Africa. The artifacts examined in this study pushed back the oldest-known use of whale bones for toolmaking by 1,000 to 2,000 years. The objects were previously discovered at the various sites and kept in museum collections. The researchers used modern analytical techniques to determine the species from which the bones came and the age of the artifacts. Humans living in this period of prehistory generally were inland hunters, obtaining most of their subsistence needs from the hunting of large hoofed mammals, Pétillon said. The new findings enhance the understanding of their exploitation of seashore resources, Pétillon added. Previous research had shown that Ice Age people gathered seashells, hunted seabirds and fished for marine fishes as a complement to meat from terrestrial animals. "The new findings tell us that these prehistoric groups were likely very well adapted to these coastal environments, and very likely had deep local ecological knowledge and understanding of their coastal habitats," McGrath said. "Whale bones would have been for more than just making tools. There is evidence for their use as fuel as well - the bones contain large amounts of oil - among other things. And the rest of the whale would also certainly have been used – teeth or baleen depending on the species, meat, skin. A single whale provides a lot of resources," McGrath said.
