Announcements

Attention IOAG community! The LunaNet Interoperability Specification (LNIS), version 5, has just been baselined and released by NASA for open, international use. Developed by the initial LunaNet Partners – ESA, JAXA and NASA – this version is considerably expanded and altered from version 4 that was used as the basis for procurements by all three Partners that were announced last year. This version was fully coordinated by the Partners and formally released after approval by NASA at the joint Directorate Program Management Council meeting on January 29^th. The new version 5 updates the core LNIS document and adds the first …

Indian space agency Isro has for the first time successfully conducted space docking by joining together two small craft in space. The technology is essential for the country's future ambition to build an Indian space station and put a person on the Moon. The mission, called SpaDeX, blasted off from Sriharikota launch pad in southern India on 30 December. The two spacecraft, launched on a single rocket, separated in space. The docking process, initially scheduled for 7 January, was rescheduled a number of times. On Thursday, the space agency announced it had created history by becoming only the fourth country to have …

Cabinet gave approval for CHANDRAYAAN-4 Mission in the series of Chandrayaan-1,2&3 Mission to Moon after the successful Chandrayaan-3 to demonstrate technologies to come back to Earth from Moon and to bring samples Posted On: 18 SEP 2024 3:13PM by PIB Delhi The union cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the mission to moon, named Chandrayaan-4 to develop and demonstrate the technologies to come back to Earth after successfully landing on the Moon and also collect moon samples and analyse them on Earth. This Chandrayaan-4 mission will achieve the foundational technologies capabilities eventually for an Indian …

Workshop on Cislunar Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) 11 - 13 February 2025 Vienna International Centre, AustriaJointly organized by the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) and the Interagency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) Introduction The Moon is a primary focus for space activities around the world in the coming decades, including orbiters, landers, rovers, human activities, science, and long-duration missions. These activities are driving a need for infrastructure to provide consistent, precise, real-time Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services, and multiple development efforts are underway to satisfy this need, beginning as early as this decade. As with the …

This program will send a student-built experiment to the Moon, marking the Arab world’s first privately funded lunar mission, spearheaded by the pioneering efforts of Orbital Space. In collaboration with Astrobotic, a space robotics and lunar logistics company, this mission underlines a significant step in the education and space exploration in the region. The centerpiece of this mission, the Lunaris Platform, was selected through a rigorous global competition judged by a panel of experts from Orbital Space, Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), UAE Space Agency, and Astrobotic. The winning experiment, crafted by students from AGH University of Science and Technology in Poland, focuses on …

HELSINKI — The Chang’e-6 return capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere early Tuesday, safely delivering unique lunar material expected to provide unique insights into the evolution of the moon. The roughly 300-kilogram Chang’e-6 reentry capsule separated from the mission service module 5,000 kilometers away from Earth. The capsule then skipped off the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean at 1:41 a.m. Eastern (0541 UTC) June 25 to decelerate, before making a final descent. The reentry capsule—containing around 2 kilograms of lunar material drilled and scooped from Apollo crater on the far side of the moon—landed in the grasslands of Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia …

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) & Interagency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) hosted a Lunar Interoperability Forum on May 7th, 2024 in Washington, DC. with the aim of accelerating the development of all needed international space communication and navigation standards required to ensure multi-national and multi-system interoperability around the Moon. This forum brought implementing organizations and associated industries together with the developers of relevant standards to identify missing standards and methods for the participants to be collectively involved in their development. Applying wider expertise will lead to interoperable prototype and, ultimately, flight systems for the benefit of all space …

The 14th Multi-GNSS Asia (MGA) Conference is taking place from January 30 – February 2 at Mae Fah Luang University, in Chiang Rai, Thailand, as well as online for virtual attendees. Multi-GNSS Asia (MGA) is an organization that promotes multi GNSS in the Asia and Oceania regions and encourages GNSS service providers and user communities to develop new applications and businesses. The conference comes on the heels of the last International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) meeting, held in Madrid in October. MGA functions as a follow-up focused on Asia-Pacific, while also facilitating broadly international collaboration on GNSS issues of global …

When: Friday, January 19th from 10-11am Eastern Where: Microsoft Teams The Interagency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) Internet of Things Working Group is interested deploying a satellite communications network that includes a space-based communications network, capable of supporting the Internet of Things (IoT). Speaker: European Space Agency’s Josep Rosello Please email the IOAG Secretariat at angela.d.peura@nasa.gov with questions or to request to attend.

he agency is testing technologies in space and on the ground that could increase bandwidth to transmit more complex science data and even stream video from Mars. Set to launch this fall, NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) project will test how lasers could speed up data transmission far beyond the capacity of current radio frequency systems used in space. What’s known as a technology demonstration, DSOC may pave the way for broadband communications that will help support humanity’s next giant leap: when NASA sends astronauts to Mars. The DSOC near-infrared laser transceiver (a device that can send and receive data) …