A group of students use their knowledge of the lost art of celestial navigation in a prestigious sailing race to discover a pure form of sailing and a new connection to the sea.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Draper has earned an award for its patent of a celestial navigation system called a sliced lens star tracker. Vehicles of all kinds may benefit when they use this system for navigating by the stars. The achievement was recognized by the Boston Patent Law Association at its 11th Annual Invented Here! event Nov. 12, 2021. Sailors, of course, have been using […]

For decades celestial navigation was seen as an increasingly archaic skill, but there is now a resurgence of interest in these traditional navigation skills, writes Rupert Holmes Yachting World, September 28, 2020 Rupert Holmes has more than 80,000 miles of offshore experience. As a Yachtmaster Instructor he also taught the RYA Yachtmaster Ocean course. Celestial navigation: Why sailing by following […]

A tool that has helped guide sailors across oceans for centuries is now being tested aboard the International Space Station as a potential emergency navigation tool for guiding future spacecraft across the cosmos. The Sextant Navigation investigation tests use of a hand-held sextant aboard the space station. Sextants have a small telescope-like optical sight to take precise angle measurements between [...]