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To keep GPS constellations from drifting, look to the moon
Developing
In Short: A new paper from researchers at the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites proposes a solution to the potential drift of GPS constellations.
According to the paper, published in Satellite Navigation, the drift issue arises when ground stations go offline for extended periods.
The researchers suggest linking GPS satellites with those orbiting the Moon, specifically in cislunar space.
Traditional Earth navigation constellations use Time-Division Multiple Access to maintain contact with neighboring satellites, ensuring accurate relative distances down to the centimeter level.
However, Earth’s gravity around its rotational axis is nearly symmetrical, allowing all satellites in an 'orbital shell' to drift simultaneously relative to their ground positions.
What's still developing
- But a new paper from a research team led by Xia Lin and Baojun Lin at the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites, and published in Satellite Navigation, explains a potential answer to this problem - link the GPS satellites up with some in orbit around the Moon.
- More accurately, satellites orbit around the Moon, in what is called cislunar space.
Sources
- Universe Todaylink