The Institute of Navigation has awarded a team of NASA engineers with the Samuel M. Burka award. The award recognized a publication related to NASA’s GPS Antenna Characterization Experiment (GPS ACE). In this photo, lead author and GPS ACE engineer Jennifer Donaldson of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, holds the award.
The GPS ACE effort used GPS signal data received by spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit to map GPS signal patterns. The comprehensive models developed by the team has furthered the navigation community’s understanding of GPS side lobes, which supplement main lobe signals to provide spacecraft at higher altitudes with critical navigation data. In fact, NASA spacecraft have fixed their location almost halfway to the Moon using GPS and a forthcoming Commercial Lunar Payload Services receiver is expected to obtain the first GPS fix on the lunar surface.
In addition to Donaldson, Goddard’s Joel Parker and Michael Moreau and The Aerospace Corporation’s Dolan Highsmith and Philip Martzen were recognized for their contributions to the paper. The Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office at NASA Headquarters in Washington leads development of GPS navigation capabilities that will empower the Artemis program.