Abstract Reaching the Moon poses very strict requirements in terms of performance, flexibility and cost for all the spacecraft subsystems. These requirements become more stringent if the mission is designed to be accomplished using a small spacecraft. The navigation subsystem is without any doubts essential and nowadays, several systems offer different solutions to the navigation problem. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) such as GPS, GLONASS, or the future Galileo and BeiDou systems, introduce an easier way to provide an autonomous on-board orbit determination system; they only require an on-board GNSS receiver, with low-cost, low-power consumption and limited mass and volume. While GNSS receivers have been already exploited with success for Low Earth Orbit (LEO), their use for very High Earth Orbit (HEO) up to the Moon altitude is still at the research stage. In this context, the purpose of the present work is to determine the potential achievable accuracy of a code-based GNSS receiver solution, during the whole trajectory to reach the Moon. GPS, Galileo, and GPS-Galileo combined (dual constellation) solutions are estimated, by considering constellations availability, pseudorange error factors and geometry factors. Unlike previous investigations, our study is making use of the very accurate multi-GNSS constellation simulator “Spirent GSS8000”, which supports simultaneously the GPS and Galileo systems with L1, L5, E1, and E5 frequency bands. The contribution of this study, clearly demonstrates that GNSS signals can be tracked up to the Moon׳s surface, but not with the current GNSS receiver׳s technology for terrestrial use. We consider and discuss a possible navigation solution that uses a double constellation GPS-Galileo receiver aided by an on board orbital filter system in order to improve the accuracy of the navigation solution and achieve the required sensitivity.

    Highlights We model the GPS and Galileo constellations and some of their signals. We model the kinematics of the receiver in Earth–Moon Transfer Orbit (MTO). We simulate received power levels, Doppler shifts and Doppler rates in the MTO. We define a sensitivity values and verify theoretically if they are achievable. We estimate the consequent achievable positioning accuracy.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Feasibility study of GNSS as navigation system to reach the Moon


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 116 ; 186-201


    Publication date :

    2015-06-06


    Size :

    16 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





    GNSS/INS/Star Tracker Integrated Navigation System for Earth-Moon Transfer Orbit

    Capuano, Vincenzo / Botteron, Cyril / Wang, Yanguang et al. | Tema Archive | 2014


    GNSS to the Moon

    Ben Ashman | NTRS


    The full Potential of an Autonomous GNSS Signalbased Navigation System for Moon Missions

    Mangialardo, Marco / Jurado, María Manzano / Hagan, David et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2021


    Feasibility analysis of GNSS-based navigation for LUMIO mission

    Bernelli-Zazzera, Franco / Forte, Danilo | BASE | 2023

    Free access