US Space Force to Use Laser Technology on GPS Satellite for Earth Center Location in 2025

TapTechNews July 14th news, the US Space Force plans to use laser technology on the GPS satellite to be launched in 2025 to more accurately locate the true center of the Earth.

As part of NASA's Space Geodesy Program, a set of Laser Retroreflector Arrays (LRA) will be installed on two GPSIII satellites named SV9 and SV10. A statement from the US Space Force said, These lasers are designed to make sub-centimeter-level accurate measurements using a technology called Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), enabling researchers to more accurately determine the center of the Earth.

On May 6th this year, these two LRAs were delivered to Lockheed Martin for integration with the GPSIII satellites before launch. This mission is a collaborative project of the US Space Force, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and NASA.

According to TapTechNews, laser ranging relies on small laser pulses to detect the distance between objects. Laser pulses from ground stations are directed to orbiting satellites equipped with LRAs, and then these LRAs reflect the beams back to the original light source. Therefore, The time required for the laser light to travel from the ground to the satellite and back can be used to calculate the distance between the satellite and the ground.

The reflected light uses three vertically arranged mirrors to form an inner angle of a cube. The LRA consists of 48 such angular reflectors to ensure that the beam is reflected back at the same angle as the incident angle.

The statement said that the LRA was built by NASA and the Naval Space Technology Center of the Naval Research Laboratory and will be operated by the US Space Force.

Accurate positioning information is crucial for finding the center of the Earth's mass, which may change slightly due to events such as tsunamis and earthquakes. Therefore, the data collected by the LRA will enable researchers to more accurately measure how the Earth changes.