{"id":62193,"date":"2019-06-21T19:58:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T11:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-seeks-wider-use-of-gps-not-from-space-but-in-space\/"},"modified":"2019-06-21T19:58:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T11:58:10","slug":"nasa-seeks-wider-use-of-gps-not-from-space-but-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-seeks-wider-use-of-gps-not-from-space-but-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Seeks Wider Use of GPS: Not From Space, but in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

NASA<\/strong>, one of the U.S. government agencies that manages GPS, wants to expand the navigation system\u2019s application in a place many probably never thought of using it \u2014 space itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe [there] will be major benefits for the satellite community during the coming years, based on what we\u2019ve been able to prove out with the Air Force using GPS in the space domain,\u201d James Miller, the deputy director for policy and strategic communications in NASA\u2019s Space Communications and Navigation Program told a session at the annual SATELLITE show in Washington.<\/p>\n

Miller and his colleague Joel Parker, the Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) policy lead for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, outlined the various ways that GPS, and the other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like Russia\u2019s GLONASS or Europe\u2019s Galileo, can be useful in space flight.<\/p>\n

The use of GPS and the other GNSS systems is pretty routine in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), said Miller. But its use in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Geostationary Orbit (GEO) and beyond, including in the area between the earth and the moon, called cislunar space, is \u201can emergent capability,\u201d according to Miller.<\/p>\n

This capability depends on the fact that the GPS broadcast signal \u201cis a little bit wider than the earth, so it spills past it by a few degrees on each side \u2014 that\u2019s called the main lobe spill-over signal,\u201d explained Parker. As with any Radio Frequency (RF) antenna, GPS broadcasts also create what are called \u201cside lobe signals\u201d either side of the main signal. \u201cThose are very useful for space users because they broadcast beyond the earth, out into space and they can be received by users in GEO orbits and CISLunar space,\u201d explained Parker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is taking the benefits of GPS and GNSS use in LEO and extending it out into space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There are several ways that GPS signals \u2014 and the timing and positioning data they supply \u2014 can be used in space, Miller explained. They include launch tracking, attitude control, time synchronization and real time onboard navigation. \u201cThat\u2019s the promise of GNSS in this area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Getting a launching spacecraft to report its own location to ground stations using on-board GPS reduces reliance on expensive adjunct systems like radar tracking, Miller said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re doing GPS position reporting from a launch, you gain autonomy and you save money, because you don\u2019t have to maintain a radar infrastructure on the ground to track these launches. It\u2019s a great benefit to the entire space community,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Miller added that some launches were already employing GPS, and noted that, when last October\u2019s Soyuz MS-10 launch had to be aborted, next generation search and rescue technology installed on GNSS satellites was the only way the capsule could be tracked. \u201cThe only US facility that was able to track that in real time and know where the astronauts were was through GPS and Galileo search and rescue payload \u2014 not even the traditional Cospas-Sarsat architecture was able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

GPS offers \u201cPrecise knowledge and control of movement,\u201d said Parker, for example for attitude monitoring and adjustment. Miller said attitude control is a \u201cperfect example\u201d of how GPS can be of use in space. \u201cWe\u2019ve been using it for several years [on ISS], we have antennas on the trusses, so that is how the U.S. end of the International Space Station (ISS) maintains its attitude control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because GPS offers time information as well as location data, it can also help with time synchronization, which is a key requirement for satellite operators, reducing the need for high cost precision timing systems to be fitted. \u201cIt can help because you don\u2019t need such expensive clocks on board your space platforms,\u201d noted Miller.<\/p>\n

But what Miller called the \u201cmost important and most powerful\u201d use of GPS by satellite operators was its potential to improving the accuracy of their onboard navigation systems \u201cfrom kilometer-class to meter-class.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an amazing opportunity to do formation flight [or] satellite servicing missions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More important still is the potential to reduce the minimum necessary distances between satellites in orbit as a result of this improved accuracy, analogous to what was done decades ago in aviation. Miller argued this greater accuracy \u201ccould create more real estate in the crowded GEO belt because with more precise positioning that\u2019s enabled by equipping satellites with GNSS, you could reduce the separation distances [required for safety reasons] between satellites, very similar to what we were able to do in the aviation world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of GPS in space is \u201cAn amazing tool coming to fruition,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA, one of the U.S. government agencies that manages GPS, wants to expand the navigation system\u2019s application in a place many probably never thought of using it \u2014 space itself. \u201cWe believe [there] will be major benefits for the satellite community during the coming years, based on what we\u2019ve been able to prove out with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}