{"id":27403,"date":"2024-10-21T12:26:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T06:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=27403"},"modified":"2025-04-08T09:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T03:54:34","slug":"moonlight-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/moonlight-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Moonlight Programme?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Moonlight Programme:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The programme will have a <strong>constellation of about five lunar satellites <\/strong>(one for high data rate communications and four for navigation) that will allow accurate autonomous landings, high-speed communication, and surface mobility.<\/li>\n<li>It is Europe\u2019s first-ever dedicated satellite constellation for <strong>telecommunication and navigation services for the Moon<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>These satellites will reportedly enable data transfer over 2,50,000 miles or 4,00,000 kilometres between the Earth and the Moon.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The prime focus of the Moonlight programme will be to offer <strong>coverage at the Moon\u2019s South Pole<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>South Pole of moon is a key area for many missions owing to lighting conditions and the potential presence of water ice within craters that perpetually remain in the shadows.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>As part of the programme, the first step will be the launch of <strong>Lunar Pathfinder<\/strong>, a communications relay satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology LTD, in 2026.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The initial services of the programme will reportedly begin by the end of 2028, and the system is said to be <strong>fully operational by 2030.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The ESA is working with NASA and the Japanese space Agency JAXA on LunaNet, which is essentially a framework to standardise communication and navigation for the Moon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is Telecommunications?<\/h3>\n<p>Telecommunications, also known as telecom, is the exchange of information over large distances. It&#8217;s a broad term that includes various sectors, but all include a transmitter and a receiver. The medium of signal transference can be via various means\u2014fiber, electromagnetic fields, light, cable, etc.<\/p>\n<p><strong>News: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/technology\/science\/what-is-moonlight-programme-europes-mission-for-lunar-explorations-9626741\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">What is the Moonlight programme, Europe\u2019s mission for lunar explorations?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moonlight Programme will have a constellation of about five lunar satellites (one for high data rate communications and four for navigation) that will allow accurate autonomous landings, high-speed communication, and surface mobility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}