ESA signs off on contracts for lunar data relay and navigation
- Reference: 1621600213
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/21/esa_moonlight/
- Source link:
Coming under the agency's Moonlight initiative, one consortium is headed by the UK's Surrey Satellite Technology Limited and includes companies such as Airbus and SES as well as the [2]Goonhilly Earth Station in the UK. The second is led by Telespazio and includes Inmarsat, Nanoracks Europe, and Spanish satellite operator Hispasat.
The consortia have been tasked with planning a lasting link to the Moon. The study period is expected to be between 12 to 18 months and potentially presented to ESA's council in 2022. If all goes well and the results are signed off, work could start in 2023 and the network be operational five years later.
[3]NASA’s getting really good at this flying a helicopter on Mars thing
[4]James Webb Space Telescope runs one last dress rehearsal for its massive golden mirrors before heading to launchpad
[5]Lego's Space Shuttle Discovery: No trouble with Hubble, but the stickers will drive a grown man to insanity
[6]Good news: An end is in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic. Bad news: Nitrogen dioxide pollution is on the up as life returns to normal
[7]ESA mulls sending waves of robot explorers into dark depths of lunar lava tubes
In terms of navigation, ESA is aiming for accuracy to 100 metres although reckoned it could got be got down to 30 metres "in the first instance". A far cry from the likes of GPS or Galileo, but a good start.
Paul Verhoef, ESA's director of Navigation, estimated that three or four satellites would be needed in lunar orbit for relay purposes, with some smaller units serving navigational purposes.
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The contracts won by the SSTL consortium are worth just over £2m, [11]according to the UK Space Agency .
The fleet, once operational, will serve a critical role in future lunar missions. As well as planned crewed missions, the link would make the establishment of radio telescopes or other research on the far side of the Moon and outside of line-of-sight communications considerably easier. ESA representatives also highlighted that a shared telecommunication and navigation system would reduce the design complexity of mission, with payload on spacecraft freed for additional instruments or cargo.
The mission will follow in the footsteps of the Lunar Pathfinder, due to enter operation in 2024. The Lunar Pathfinder is ESA's first Moon partnership with European industry and aimed at addressing communication and navigation needs for lunar exploration as well as demonstrating lunar navigation.
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ESA is also providing the ESPRIT communications module for the lunar Gateway as well as the service module for NASA's Orion spacecraft.
Elodie Viau, director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, signed the contracts on behalf of ESA. "A lasting link with the Moon enables sustainable space exploration for all our international partners, including commercial space companies," she said. ®
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[1] https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/ESA_advances_its_plan_for_satellites_around_the_Moon
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/25/geeks_guide_goonhilly/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/26/nasas_ingenuity_mars_helicopter_third_flight/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/13/james_webb_last_checks/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/21/lego_space_shuttle_discovery/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/16/pandemic_air_quality/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/26/esa_moon_rovers/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YKfZM@xwkMXkoHe39WyVcwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[11] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-government-funding-helps-uk-companies-lead-the-way-for-future-moon-missions
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YKfZM@xwkMXkoHe39WyVcwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Satellites in lunar orbit
The satellites themselves will be much the same size, orbit around the moon probably a little lower but we shall see what they come up with. I suspect not *that* low as they won't want the same sort of constellations size that you see for Earth (~24 active satellites) navigation simply for the cost of putting it up there, and might be willing to accept areas of poor navigation coverage, etc.
Re: Satellites in lunar orbit
Geostationary around the Moon is not possible, mostly because the Moon rotates so slowly that the satellite would be further away than the Earth. In fact due to the Moon being tidally locked we appear in a stationary position to a lunar observer. If the advantage of a geostationary orbit is having a single point to focus on then it's made moot by the presence of the Earth. The advantage of satellite constellations is to allow smaller antennae and lower latency which is probably the intention here.
Re: Satellites in lunar orbit
There are various Lagrange points for the Earth-Moon system which would provide a stationary location in the Lunar sky. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point_colonization), but for an accurate Lunar Positioning System, you'd probably need a fair number of satellites orbiting the Moon.
Intuitively, Lunar-stationary orbit would be around the Earth-Moon distance as the Earth is stationary in the Lunar sky, however, the great mass of the Earth compared to that of the Moon, may complicate things. See, e.g., https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-possible-to-achieve-a-stable-lunarstationary-orbit-around-the-moon .
And thinking about lunar tourism...
At this stage could the ITU please set the maximum lunar roaming call rate?
" one consortium is headed by the UK's Surrey Satellite Technology Limited"
Thank the Maker that brexit didn't cut us off from the ESA. We have decades of valuable contributions already and with luck will continue to have for the foreseeable future.
Re: " one consortium is headed by the UK's Surrey Satellite Technology Limited"
SSTL is part of Airbus Defence & Space anyway.
Re: " one consortium is headed by the UK's Surrey Satellite Technology Limited"
Thank the Maker that brexit didn't cut us off from the ESA
How could it? The ESA is not an EU organization, it's a European organization.
Will they remember to include deorbiting as standard with all this new kit that going to be flying around the moon?
That could perhaps be a bit trickier, since just lowering the orbit until atmospheric drag takes over isn't going to be an option.
With some exceptions, [1]lunar orbits tend to be quite unstable . In a lower orbit, you usually crash within months or years if you aren't actively stabilizing the orbit with small maneuvers.
At the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 points, you can appear to 'hover'. For L2, you do need to loop around the point directly over the lunar far side; otherwise, your view/communications to Earth will be blocked by having the moon in the way. Both points are dynamically unstable; depending on how you slide off the balance point, you'll hit the moon or earth or be thrown into heliocentric orbit.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy)#Effect_of_lunar_mascons_on_satellite_orbits
Satellites in lunar orbit
Do those satellites need to be smaller that what we're using in orbit around Earth ?
Due the Moon's reduced mass, of course.
I'm guessing that we can do geostationary around the Moon, but they might need to be at a lower altitude. In any case, I'm sure they'll get the details worked out. We've been managing satellites for long enough to know what to do. One might even say that there are no new technical difficulties in this project. The biggest hurdle will be, as always, getting the sats into space. Once they're there, the rest should not be a problem.