Creator: Maxinomics · Published: 2025-03-30 · Length: 8:11 · Watch on YouTube

If GPS disappeared overnight, the global economy would grind to a halt—so why are we building it on the moon? NASA is investing billions in a revolutionary lunar GPS network to support the growing space economy and fierce international competition. This is how we'll navigate on the moon for decades to come. (video description)

1) Detailed outline

[0:00] The reliance on GPS

• If GPS stopped working everywhere, flights would be grounded, truckers stranded, and thousands of containers left sitting idle. Almost everything that moves from point A to point B would stop.
• At least $1 trillion a year in business relies on the 32 GPS satellites circling Earth.
• Once Europe and China realized how much they depended on the American system, they built their own versions over the last decade.

[0:33] Racing to the moon

• So what does it mean that we're now building GPS for the moon? Driven by nations racing to secure the best lunar real estate, NASA has plans underway for the first lunar GPS system, with the first satellite scheduled to go into lunar orbit this year (2025).
• Today you couldn't drive a rover along a precise route to specific coordinates on the moon, say a spot where there's water.
• That wouldn't matter if the number of payloads leaving Earth weren't going parabolic and money pouring into the space economy weren't rising just as fast. Two weeks before the video, three separate missions touched down on the moon within days of each other.

[1:14] Limitations of deep space

• The missions trying to map, mine, and inhabit the moon have found that the system guiding spacecraft through space can't handle demand by a huge margin.
• That system is the Deep Space Network, loosely comparable to GPS in space but old and not built for today. Built starting in the 1960s and upgraded over time, it is a mesh of 14 antennas at three sites: Canberra, Australia; Barstow (Goldstone), California; and Madrid, Spain. The sites are spaced so at least one antenna can always hear signals from distant spacecraft.
• The largest dishes are over 210 feet across and built to catch the faintest signals, like those from the Voyager probes, roughly 16 billion miles away, whose radio blips take about 22 hours to reach Earth. Phil compares it to yelling down from the top of a mountain.
• Because the signals are so faint, the network can listen to only one at a time. Every data transfer is scheduled to the minute; when a Voyager signal is due, the network stops listening to the roughly 40 other projects it serves.

[2:55] Artemis mission challenges

• Artemis, the new U.S. flagship program to explore the moon, kicked off in 2022, and when things went haywire during the mission the network's limits showed in perfect detail.
• Artemis 1 was scheduled for 25.5 days: launch, deploy 10 satellites en route, loop around the moon, and return, about 1.4 million miles. Navigation had to be precise and the Orion spacecraft had to stay connected most of the time.
• Since an antenna can serve only one spacecraft at a time, capacity is measured in hours. The mission used 1,774 hours, 23% of everything the network had during that window.
• Meanwhile the James Webb Space Telescope, which usually connects every 12 hours, had to wait days; once every 70 to 80 hours became the norm. Webb has about half the storage of a base-model iPhone, so the delays hurt.
• The takeaway: any sustained presence or exploration on the moon is out of the question without a network dedicated to the moon.

[4:31] The second space race

• If the U.S. is going to compete for the moon again, now against the Chinese space agency, which has already landed a probe on the far side, a new system has to be built.
• Phil dwells on the word "compete." People have long talked about mining the moon or asteroids or colonizing Mars without it happening, but the 2020s differ in two ways: reusable rockets have made trips to space cheap, and that has rekindled FOMO, the fear of missing out on first-come, first-served territory, sharpened by China's explicit goal of becoming the dominant space power.
• Earth's history is full of fights over land and water: the South China Sea, Mesopotamia, Vietnam, Sudan, South Africa, American Indian lands, Ukraine. It is easier to be first: plant a flag and set up permanently.
• The U.S., China, Europe, Japan, and Russia aren't even considering not staking a claim; every move by one prods the others. Phil expects the Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords to matter about as little as the UN law of the sea.

[6:04] Navigating the moon

• The moon is ground zero, especially the south pole. The Deep Space Network can't see the far side at all (half the moon) and can barely see the south pole, where interest and mission plans are piling up because that's where water is known to be, making it the place to sustain a human presence.
• Because the moon is tidally locked, its far side never faces Earth. Communicating there needs a constellation of satellites that look down on the whole moon, pass data between themselves, and relay it to a ground station on Earth.

[6:47] Building the lunar network

• That's what Intuitive Machines is building. It was the first private company to land on the moon and the first American landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
• Its IM-1 lander launched on a SpaceX rocket, traveled about seven days, landed, then tipped over. Much of its instrumentation still worked, so the mission was considered a success; Phil shows the fuzzy spot of the lander in a lunar orbit image.
• NASA chose Intuitive Machines to build GPS for the moon: a five-satellite system able to stream 4K video back to Earth and give GPS-level navigation accuracy. The contract for what's being called the cislunar network is worth nearly $5 billion.
• This sits where two main parts of the space economy meet, satellite communications (satcom) and geospatial intelligence; Phil promises videos on the other parts.
• The number of payloads launched will keep rising, driven by FOMO, and space-economy spending will follow.

2) Things mentioned

Economics, markets, and policy

• GPS as economic infrastructure: at least $1 trillion a year in business depends on it.
• The space economy: spending rising alongside a parabolic rise in payloads launched.
• Satcom and geospatial intelligence: the two space-economy segments where the lunar network sits.
• Network capacity as a scarce resource: Deep Space Network time measured and rationed in antenna-hours.
• Falling launch costs: reusable rockets making space access cheap.
• First-mover advantage and FOMO: the race to claim lunar territory.
• Outer Space Treaty, Artemis Accords, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: international rules Phil expects to matter little.
• Territorial conflicts on Earth: South China Sea, Mesopotamia, Vietnam, Sudan, South Africa, American Indian lands, and Ukraine.

Companies, agencies, and programs

• NASA: funding the first lunar GPS and communications network.
• Deep Space Network: NASA's 14-antenna network at Canberra, Goldstone near Barstow, and Madrid.
• Artemis program and Artemis 1 (2022): the uncrewed Orion mission that used 23% of network capacity.
• Orion: the spacecraft flown on Artemis 1.
• James Webb Space Telescope: delayed check-ins during Artemis 1.
• Voyager probes: roughly 16 billion miles away, with 22-hour signal travel time.
• Intuitive Machines: first private company to land on the moon; builder of the five-satellite lunar network under a contract worth nearly $5 billion.
• IM-1 lander: the Intuitive Machines lander that tipped over but kept working.
• SpaceX: launched IM-1.
• Chinese space agency: landed a probe on the moon's far side.
• Apollo 17: the last American moon landing before IM-1.
• Competing navigation systems: Europe's and China's own versions of GPS (Galileo and BeiDou).

Products and technology

• GPS constellation: 32 satellites.
• Lunar relay constellation: satellites that view the whole moon and relay data to Earth, with 4K video and GPS-level accuracy.
• Base-model iPhone: used to describe Webb's limited onboard storage.

Places

• Lunar south pole: where water is and missions are headed, barely visible from Earth.
• Far side of the moon: never visible from Earth and unreachable by the Deep Space Network.
• Canberra, Australia; Barstow (Goldstone), California; Madrid, Spain: Deep Space Network sites.

3) Biographies

Phil Andrews (presenter)

Phil Andrews is the producer and on-camera host of Maxinomics ("the guy in the videos and the comments"), a Morning Brew channel that explains economics, business, and geopolitics through stories. Here he explains why the moon needs its own navigation and communications network and why competition with China is driving it.

Intuitive Machines (subject)

Intuitive Machines is a Houston-based space company. In February 2024 its IM-1 lander, Odysseus, became the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon and the first U.S. lander there since Apollo 17. The video covers NASA's choice of the company to build the lunar network.

NASA and the Deep Space Network (subject)

NASA is the U.S. space agency. Its Deep Space Network, run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks to missions beyond Earth orbit from antenna complexes in California, Spain, and Australia. The video uses Artemis 1's heavy use of it to show why a dedicated lunar network is needed.

China's space program (subject)

China's national space program landed Chang'e 4 on the moon's far side in 2019, the first landing there. The video presents China's goal of being the dominant space power as the spark for a second space race.

Production credits

Producer Phil Andrews; video editor Sarah Kate Gervasoni; motion graphics by Seth Laupus; director of production services Sam Wolf; thumbnail by Tom Grillo; chief content officer Devin Emery.