Discover how NASA’s teams are pushing the boundaries of timekeeping precision with innovative technologies like quantum and optical communications, paving the way for groundbreaking discoveries in space exploration.
Synchronizing Clocks in Space
A few seconds of clock inaccuracy probably won’t make much impact right here on Earth. However, for key spacecraft operations, äs an accuracy to at least one part in a billion of a second or better is required.
GPS navigation relies on ultra-precise timing signals from satellites to determine location. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center hosts three teams who are pushing timekeeping for space exploration to new levels of precision.
The difficult thing is, that due to the fact that spacecraft are moving at tens of thousands of miles per hour, the more time goes by the further out of synchronization they become. To solve this, NASA is taking a fresh look at cutting-edge options -from quantum and optical communications to an alternative method for accurately tying clocks together over long distances.
Using quantum protocols that apply to entangled photons, they hope to develop a way for safely synchronizing clocks with high precision — even in areas where GPS signals are not available, like the Moon or in deep space. This opens up new doors for space missions and scientific experiments.
Next-Level Telescope Coordination Produces Some of the Best Photos Ever
Like in astronomy, the general rule is the larger the telescope, the better the images. But a telescope the size of the Earth would not make any sense to build.
Rather, NASA scientists are struggling with what is known as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) where observations from an array of smaller telescopes are linked together to create a much more detailed image than can be seen individually.
VLBI only works if the telescopes also have very precise clocks that can record data with corresponding times to “stamp” them. From there, the observations can be combined to produce a full detailed image (see: Event Horizon Telescope’s historic black hole photo).
But NASA’s team is working on a technology that could be developed and used in space missions to open the door for VLBI in space, which would make the sorts of revolutionary discoveries about our universe possible that astronomers like Issac Newton only dreamed of.
Conclusion
With technology like quantum and optical, NASA’s teams still push to approach the limit of timekeeping precision. Such improvements in space timekeeping could provide for novel science and unlock uncharted possibilities in planetary research at scales both small and large, redefining the ways in which we can probe the expanses of our solar system and beyond.
