[AR] Re: Lunar GPS navigation.
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:09:21 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 31 Jul 2019, David McMillan wrote:
There's no reason why a GPS-type system wouldn't work in lunar orbit...
[Geostar] [Transit] ...
How much would any of these constellation concepts have to rely on
ground stations for ephemeris updates? I know that GPS and Galileo rely
heavily on ground stations constantly updating the clocks...
I expect you'd need a few lunar ground stations at known locations,
measuring the satellite signals and reporting on them. Might be able to
largely automate it by having sets of ground beacons in a few places, that
the *satellites* listen to when they pass over, determining their own
positions and orbits at regular intervals.
...given how unstable Lunar orbits tend to be...
As Bill has already pointed out, it's not quite that bad. Especially
since we now have complete lunar gravity maps, giving rather better orbit
prediction than we used to have.
Henry
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