While everyone was deeply concerned about Russia-Ukraine war, M23 rebels in Congo, Israel-Hamas fight, trade wars and many other things, a revolution was going on. Texas based aerospace company - Firefly - which launched Blue Ghost on Jan 25 using SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was able to successfully land (and thus become the first commercial company to do so) their the module on moon on March 2. Lander is stable and in vertical condition. Equipment is expected to work for one lunar day (14 earth days). Blue ghost is among a number of private companies funded by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) as part of Artemis program. In last February, 'Intuitive Machines' landed their module in moon but unfortunately it fell on its side and became un-operational. 'Intuitive Machines' is going again with their Athena lunar module.
The entry of multiple private companies in to space will bring in competition and eventually reduce the overall cost. This will only meake the dream of humanity to start a colony first on moon and then on mars a step closer to reality. If not human colony, probably we may be able to bring in valuable minerals from space and build things here in earth in near future!!! May be moon and mars will end up as launch pads for human race's expansion further in to space.
Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE)
There are multiple paylods carried by Blue Ghost. Out of that one seems to be very interesting - The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE). This is a joint effort between NASA and Italian Space Agency to see the viability of using "existing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals for positioning, navigation, and timing on the Moon. GNSS constellations support essential services like navigation, banking, power grid synchronization, cellular networks, and telecommunications. Near-Earth space missions use these signals in flight to determine critical operational information like location, velocity, and time. The LuGRE payload is one of the first demonstrations of GNSS signal reception and navigation on and around the lunar surface, an important milestone for how lunar missions will access navigation and positioning technology. If successful, LuGRE would demonstrate that spacecraft can use signals from existing GNSS satellites at lunar distances, reducing their reliance on ground-based stations on the Earth for lunar navigation".
Ok, long story short. What if future humans have a GPS/similar kinds of navigation system in moon or in mars. Imagine we are driving a shuttle through moon by looking at maps in our mobile!!! and this moble won't need to get signals directly from earth stations but intermediate and may be from moon itself!!! Also there is a 'Moonlight' initiative/LCNS (Moonlight Lunar Communications and Navigation Services) by ESA (European Space Agency); their goal is to create uninterrupted telecommunications satellite coverage between Earth and the Moon; as well as lunar satellite navigation.
There are many more provate companies engaged in lunar missions (see below).
Blue Moon (Blue Origin)
SERIES-2 (Draper)
Peregrine (Astrobotic)
Starship HLS (SpaceX)
Hakuto-R Mission 1 (ispace)
IM-2 (Intuitive Machines)
In coming years, we will see more commercial launches and declining cost/launch. Moon and mars may no longer remain as final frontier for human race.
Sajeev
References
2, Wired
3, NASA
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