The Spanish technology company GMV has entered Lupin, a GPS style navigation system designed for lunar missions. | Photo credit: Reuters/Toby Melville
The Spanish technology company GMV has presented a navigation system similar to GPS for the Moon that aims to make lunar missions as intuitive as an impulse through the city with applications such as Google Maps or Waze.
Called Lupin, the project is part of a European Space Agency program to test new positioning, navigation and timing techniques as an interest in lunar surface exploration that is collected again, either for scientific research, potential mining opportunities or even future tourism.
“With this software, we approach Europe to establish a presence of humans on the moon and, potentially, this would be a springboard towards the exploration of Mars or the human presence on Mars,” said Steven Kay, project director, to Reuters.
The new technology was tested in the landscapes of another world of Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands of Spain, where the GMV made field tials with the prototype in a part of the land that has some similarity to the lunar surface.
By using signals similar to the GP of the satellites with the moon orbit, Lupin would allow rovers and astronauts to identify their location on the moon in real time.
Currently, navigating the largest natural satellite on Earth is difficult, since the spacecraft on its surface has to trust calculations and complex data transmitted from the Earth, which is Netty Rapid or precise.
“Communication depends on direct visibility with the land or the use of retransmission satellites in the lunar orbit, that the communicative shadow areas and the latency times that hinder immediate decision making,” GMV said in a statement.
The lack of real -time updates on changes in the moon field is based on recent impacts or moving dust movements also hinder earth trips in the satellite.
The company wants to combine lunar cartography with information obtained from satellites with orbit of the moon aimed at dark points, such as the South Lunar Pole and the “distant side”, the area usually in the shadow.
“We want these rovers to make the moon surface in a quick and safe way so that astronauts can return in a few years, work there and establish permanent bases,” said GMV’s head of strategy, Mariella Graziano.
Posted on May 13, 2025
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