Communications and Navigation: LunaNet, Moonlight and Queqiao
How will spacecraft and astronauts on the Moon talk to Earth and find their position, and who is paid to provide it?
Chapter summary
Until now each lunar mission has brought its own radio link to NASA's Deep Space Network or China's ground stations.
Key takeaways
- 1
That does not scale to a base with rovers, landers and crews working where Earth is below the horizon.
- 2
Agencies are moving to shared relay and navigation services: NASA's LunaNet standards and a Near Space Network relay contract with Intuitive Machines (ceiling $4.82 billion to 2034), ESA's Moonlight programme starting with SSTL's Lunar Pathfinder, and China's Queqiao-2 relay already in lunar orbit.
- 3
Communications is the first lunar layer to become a service business, with a market of a few hundred million dollars a year by 2030 (Setcoin estimate).
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Cislunar Transport: Orbits, Tugs and Relays
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