If you've ever taken a wrong turn at the Sea of Tranquility and ended up lost in the Ocean of Storms, then you're in luck, because the Moon is getting GPS, sort of. GMV, a Spanish capital business group with extensive experience in the space sector, has announced a navigation system for the Moon akin to GPS.
The ambitious project, dubbed LUPIN, aims to help astronauts, industrialists and even future settlers navigate more easily across the lunar surface. In a press release for LUPIN, GMV explains part of the problem with current navigation systems on the Moon. "Existing communications also depend upon direct visibility with the Earth, or on the use of relay satellites in lunar orbit. These factors generate communication shadow zones and lag times, and this makes it harder to make immediate decisions," the company said.
GMV is developing LUPIN together with the European Space Agency, a working partnership that goes back to GMV's first government contract in 1984. The technology leverages existing Moon-orbiting satellites and signals similar to GPS to help rovers and astronauts find their real-time exact location on the Moon's surface.
"These are satellite signals that will be used in the same way as GPS signals are used on Earth, although in this case the satellites will be in orbit around the Moon. This system will also be adapted to particular areas of interest (for example, the lunar south pole, the far side of the moon, and permanently shadowed regions)," the company adds.
In a statement to Reuters, the project's director, Steven Kay, said, "With this software, we bring Europe closer to establishing a presence of humans on the Moon and, potentially, this would be a stepping stone towards Mars exploration or human presence on Mars."
Engadget has reached out to GMV with questions about LUPIN's accuracy, underlying technology, and deployment roadmap. We'll update this article when we hear back.
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