First Multi-Constellation Observations of Navigation Satellite Signals in the Lunar Domain by Post-Processing L1/L5 IQ Snapshots

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sciacca, Lorenzo, Minetto, Alex, Nardin, Andrea, Dovis, Fabio, Canzian, Luca, Musmeci, Mario, Facchinetti, Claudia, Varacalli, Giancarlo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Sciacca, Lorenzo
Minetto, Alex
Nardin, Andrea
Dovis, Fabio
Canzian, Luca
Musmeci, Mario
Facchinetti, Claudia
Varacalli, Giancarlo
author_facet Sciacca, Lorenzo
Minetto, Alex
Nardin, Andrea
Dovis, Fabio
Canzian, Luca
Musmeci, Mario
Facchinetti, Claudia
Varacalli, Giancarlo
contents The use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to increase spacecraft autonomy for orbit determination has gained renewed momentum following the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which demonstrated feasible onboard GPS and Galileo signal reception and tracking at lunar distances. This work processes in-phase and quadrature (IQ) snapshots collected by the LuGRE receiver in cis-lunar space and on the lunar surface to assess multi-frequency, multi-constellation signal availability. Signals from additional systems beyond GPS and Galileo, including RNSS and SBAS constellations, are observable and successfully acquired exclusively in the recorded IQ snapshots. These observations provide the first experimental evidence that signals from multiple constellations, including systems not supported by LuGRE realtime operations, are detectable at unprecedented distances from Earth. Useful observables can be extracted from the IQ snapshots, despite minimal sampling rates, 4-bit quantization, and short durations (200 ms-2 s), through a hybrid coherent/non-coherent acquisition stage compensating for code Doppler. These observations are exploited to tune simulation tools and to perform extended simulation campaigns, showing that the inclusion of additional constellations significantly improves availability; for a 26 dB-Hz acquisition threshold, the fraction of epochs with at least four visible satellites increases from 11% to 46% of the total epoch count. These findings indicate that BeiDou, RNSS, and SBAS signals can substantially enhance GNSS-based autonomy for lunar and cislunar missions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_06081
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle First Multi-Constellation Observations of Navigation Satellite Signals in the Lunar Domain by Post-Processing L1/L5 IQ Snapshots
Sciacca, Lorenzo
Minetto, Alex
Nardin, Andrea
Dovis, Fabio
Canzian, Luca
Musmeci, Mario
Facchinetti, Claudia
Varacalli, Giancarlo
Space Physics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Robotics
Signal Processing
The use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to increase spacecraft autonomy for orbit determination has gained renewed momentum following the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which demonstrated feasible onboard GPS and Galileo signal reception and tracking at lunar distances. This work processes in-phase and quadrature (IQ) snapshots collected by the LuGRE receiver in cis-lunar space and on the lunar surface to assess multi-frequency, multi-constellation signal availability. Signals from additional systems beyond GPS and Galileo, including RNSS and SBAS constellations, are observable and successfully acquired exclusively in the recorded IQ snapshots. These observations provide the first experimental evidence that signals from multiple constellations, including systems not supported by LuGRE realtime operations, are detectable at unprecedented distances from Earth. Useful observables can be extracted from the IQ snapshots, despite minimal sampling rates, 4-bit quantization, and short durations (200 ms-2 s), through a hybrid coherent/non-coherent acquisition stage compensating for code Doppler. These observations are exploited to tune simulation tools and to perform extended simulation campaigns, showing that the inclusion of additional constellations significantly improves availability; for a 26 dB-Hz acquisition threshold, the fraction of epochs with at least four visible satellites increases from 11% to 46% of the total epoch count. These findings indicate that BeiDou, RNSS, and SBAS signals can substantially enhance GNSS-based autonomy for lunar and cislunar missions.
title First Multi-Constellation Observations of Navigation Satellite Signals in the Lunar Domain by Post-Processing L1/L5 IQ Snapshots
topic Space Physics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Robotics
Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06081