Lunar clock in the making: NASA working on lunar time standard

NASA is spearheading efforts to create a standardized time system for the moon, following a White House policy directive issued in April.

The agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program is leading this initiative to develop coordinated lunar time (LTC), which will be crucial for future lunar exploration and potentially scalable to other celestial bodies in our solar system.

The proposed lunar time standard will be based on a weighted average of atomic clocks placed on the Moon, in the same way that Earth’s Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is calculated.

However, the exact lunar locations of these clocks remain to be determined, as current analyses show that atomic clocks on the Moon’s surface appear to run a few microseconds per day faster than those on Earth.

Cheryl Gramling, head of lunar position, navigation, timing and standards at NASA Headquarters, stressed the significance of these seemingly small time differences.

“For an object traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough to cover the distance of about 168 football fields,” she explained. This time difference could lead to significant positioning errors for lunar missions if not properly accounted for.

The creation of the LTC is essential to the safety and success of future lunar explorers, especially as NASA’s Artemis campaign aims to establish a sustainable presence on and around the Moon.

Dr Ben Ashman, navigation lead for the lunar relay development, highlighted the growing need for time standardisation as commercial space activities expand and more nations become active on the Moon.

NASA’s SCaN program, which oversees the agency’s space communications and navigation operations, will play a key role in implementing this lunar time standard. The program currently supports more than 100 NASA and other agency missions through its Near Space Network and Deep Space Network.

As the agency works toward that goal, researchers are exploring the best mathematical models for establishing lunar time.

The development of the LTC is not only crucial for lunar missions, but also serves as a stepping stone for future long-duration exploration of Mars and other celestial bodies in our solar system.