GPS Technology Inspires Interplanetary Navigation

If you follow our blog, you should be familiar with the basics of how GPS technology works. Just in case, here is a brief summary: A constellation of GPS satellites orbiting Earth send and receive signals from GPS devices on the surface, which can pinpoint the exact longitude and latitude location of the device. This information can be used to track a person, property or to calculate a turn-by-turn route to your destination. The technology has come a long way and is now the partial inspiration for a promising and futuristic navigation system for our solar system and beyond.

NASA is developing a method for astronauts and space craft to navigate the solar system without relying on radio waves from Earth. The proposed system “will allow our descendants to accurately and autonomously navigate not only throughout the solar system, but beyond it as well,” explained Jason Mitchell, an engineer on the project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Maybe in the future, when we’re exploring space regularly, we won’t need to rely on a gigantic, Earth-based infrastructure.” 

Much like ancient nomads, the navigation system would rely on the predictable pattern of stars surrounding our planet. In particular, the system uses pulsars, or zombie stars, that blink at regular intervals. Radio waves can take a long time to travel from Earth to the astronauts in space and serve as a literal tether to our planet. By looking to alternate methods of navigation, like a system based on pulsars, we can explore deeper into space. IEEE Spectrum explains the project:

“A craft heading into space would carry a detector that, similarly to a GPS receiver, would accept X-rays from multiple pulsars and use them to resolve its location. These detectors – called XNAV receivers – would sense X-ray photons in the pulsars’ sweeping light. For each of four or more pulsars, the receiver would collect multiple X-ray photos and build a “light curve.” The peak in each light curve would be tagged with a precise time. The timing of these peaks with respect to one another would change as you traveled through the solar system, drawing nearer to the source of some and farther from others. From this pattern of peaks, the spacecraft could calculate its position.”

GPS Technology Inspires Interplanetary Navigation