UK's space firm to launch satellites on Moon to unveil universe's secrets

Proceeding from a latest article, The Guardian features that Blue Skies Space, a British space company, is developing an innovative fleet of satellites that could orbit the Moon to uncover secrets about the early universe. 

Tasked by the Italian Space Agency, the company is working on satellites designed to detect faint radio signals from the universe’s dawn.

These signals, which are nearly impossible to detect from Earth due to interference from man-made radio waves, can be better captured from the far side of the Moon, where it is shielded from Earth’s noise.

Dr. Marcell Tessenyi, CEO of Blue Skies Space, emphasized the importance of this project, stating, “We aim to peer into the 'dark ages' of the universe and uncover information about the large-scale structures that formed in its earliest stages. Achieving this from Earth’s surface is incredibly challenging.”

The Italian Space Agency has allocated 200,000 euros for a design project to explore the feasibility of using a fleet of at least four satellites to detect these radio signals, which lie within the FM radio range. These signals date back to less than a million years after the Big Bang, offering a glimpse into a time before the first stars formed, when the universe consisted mostly of hydrogen gas.

The far side of the Moon is seen as the perfect spot for this research due to its protection from Earth-based radio interference. NASA recently deployed its ROLSES-1 radio telescope on the Moon, marking a significant milestone in lunar-based radio research.

Later this year, NASA and the US Department of Energy will launch the LuSEE-Night experiment, placing another radio telescope on the lunar far side. Additionally, plans are underway to build a massive lunar radio telescope using robots.

Blue Skies Space plans to utilize small CubeSats, integrated into the European Space Agency’s Moonlight program, to help position the observation satellites and transmit data back to Earth, potentially unlocking groundbreaking insights into the universe’s earliest stages.

By Naila Huseynova