Illustration by Northrop Grumman
WASHINGTON — Navigation is emerging as a growing challenge for spacecraft operating beyond Earth orbit, where GPS coverage weakens. Northrop Grumman is adapting technologies developed for the James Webb Space Telescope into a smaller navigation system aimed at mid-size satellites.
The defense contractor said it developed a spacecraft navigation system called LR-450 that allows a vehicle to calculate its position, movement and orientation without relying on external signals such as GPS.
Northrop describes the LR-450 as a smaller, lower-power commercial derivative of the navigation architecture used in NASA’s Webb telescope, which has operated near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point since early 2022.
GPS signals were designed primarily for terrestrial and near-Earth use. Although they extend beyond low Earth orbit, the signals weaken significantly deeper into space, creating challenges for lunar missions, military spacecraft and deep-space probes.
