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AFRL engineer award winner proclaims a first for the U.S. Space Force
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By Space Force
Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, Defense Logistics Agency Director and Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, Space Force Chief Operations Officer signed an agreement to optimize logistics support Sept 18. at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
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By Space Force
At this week's annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference, the command responsible for training and readiness in the Space Force emphasized Guardian development, connection and family readiness across three key panel discussions.
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By European Space Agency
Just a month after its launch, ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite has already delivered its first images, notably capturing Storm Boris, which has been wreaking havoc across central Europe.
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By NASA
5 Min Read Reinventing the Clock: NASA’s New Tech for Space Timekeeping
The Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock is a higher-precision atomic clock that is small enough to fit on a spacecraft. Credits: NASA/Matthew Kaufman Here on Earth, it might not matter if your wristwatch runs a few seconds slow. But crucial spacecraft functions need accuracy down to one billionth of a second or less. Navigating with GPS, for example, relies on precise timing signals from satellites to pinpoint locations. Three teams at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are at work to push timekeeping for space exploration to new levels of precision.
One team develops highly precise quantum clock synchronization techniques to aid essential spacecraft communication and navigation. Another Goddard team is working to employ the technique of clock synchronization in space-based platforms to enable telescopes to function as one enormous observatory. The third team is developing an atomic clock for spacecraft based on strontium, a metallic chemical element, to enable scientific observations not possible with current technology. The need for increasingly accurate timekeeping is why these teams at NASA Goddard, supported by the center’s Internal Research and Development program, hone clock precision and synchronization with innovative technologies like quantum and optical communications.
Syncing Up Across the Solar System
“Society requires clock synchronization for many crucial functions like power grid management, stock market openings, financial transactions, and much more,” said Alejandro Rodriguez Perez, a NASA Goddard researcher. “NASA uses clock synchronization to determine the position of spacecraft and set navigation parameters.”
If you line up two clocks and sync them together, you might expect that they will tick at the same rate forever. In reality, the more time passes, the more out of sync the clocks become, especially if those clocks are on spacecraft traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Rodriguez Perez seeks to develop a new way of precisely synchronizing such clocks and keeping them synced using quantum technology.
Work on the quantum clock synchronization protocol takes place in this lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.NASA/Matthew Kaufman In quantum physics, two particles are entangled when they behave like a single object and occupy two states at once. For clocks, applying quantum protocols to entangled photons could allow for a precise and secure way to sync clocks across long distances.
The heart of the synchronization protocol is called spontaneous parametric down conversion, which is when one photon breaks apart and two new photons form. Two detectors will each analyze when the new photons appear, and the devices will apply mathematical functions to determine the offset in time between the two photons, thus synchronizing the clocks.
While clock synchronization is currently done using GPS, this protocol could make it possible to precisely synchronize clocks in places where GPS access is limited, like the Moon or deep space.
Syncing Clocks, Linking Telescopes to See More than Ever Before
When it comes to astronomy, the usual rule of thumb is the bigger the telescope, the better its imagery.
“If we could hypothetically have a telescope as big as Earth, we would have incredibly high-resolution images of space, but that’s obviously not practical,” said Guan Yang, an optical physicist at NASA Goddard. “What we can do, however, is have multiple telescopes in various locations and have each telescope record the signal with high time precision. Then we can stich their observations together and produce an ultra-high-res image.”
The idea of linking together the observations of a network of smaller telescopes to affect the power of a larger one is called very long baseline interferometry, or VLBI.
For VLBI to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts, the telescopes need high-precision clocks. The telescopes record data alongside timestamps of when the data was recorded. High-powered computers assemble all the data together into one complete observation with greater detail than any one of the telescopes could achieve on its own. This technique is what allowed the Event Horizon Telescope’s network of observatories to produce the first image of a black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks.EHT Collaboration Yang’s team is developing a clock technology that could be useful for missions looking to take the technique from Earth into space which could unlock many more discoveries.
An Optical Atomic Clock Built for Space Travel
Spacecraft navigation systems currently rely on onboard atomic clocks to obtain the most accurate time possible. Holly Leopardi, a physicist at NASA Goddard, is researching optical atomic clocks, a more precise type of atomic clock.
While optical atomic clocks exist in laboratory settings, Leopardi and her team seek to develop a spacecraft-ready version that will provide more precision.
The team works on OASIC, which stands for Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock. While current spacecraft utilize microwave frequencies, OASIC uses optical frequencies.
The Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock is a higher-precision atomic clock that is small enough to fit on a spacecraft.NASA/Matthew Kaufman “Optical frequencies oscillate much faster than microwave frequencies, so we can have a much finer resolution of counts and more precise timekeeping,” Leopardi said.
The OASIC technology is about 100 times more precise than the previous state-of-the-art in spacecraft atomic clocks. The enhanced accuracy could enable new types of science that were not previously possible.
“When you use these ultra-high precision clocks, you can start looking at the fundamental physics changes that occur in space,” Leopardi said, “and that can help us better understand the mechanisms of our universe.”
The timekeeping technologies unlocked by these teams, could enable new discoveries in our solar system and beyond.
More on cutting-edge technology development at NASA Goddard By Matthew Kaufman, with additional contributions from Avery Truman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Sep 18, 2024 EditorRob GarnerContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Goddard Technology Communicating and Navigating with Missions Goddard Space Flight Center Technology View the full article
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has awarded a contract to Intuitive Machines, LLC of Houston, to support the agency’s lunar relay systems as part of the Near Space Network, operated by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This Subcategory 2.2 GEO to Cislunar Relay Services is a new firm-fixed-price, multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity task order contract. The contract has a base period of five years with an additional 5-year option period, with a maximum potential value of $4.82 billion. The base ordering period begins Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2029, with the option period potentially extending the contract through Sept. 30, 2034.
Lunar relays will play an essential role in NASA’s Artemis campaign to establish a long-term presence on the Moon. These relays will provide vital communication and navigation services for the exploration and scientific study of the Moon’s South Pole region. Without the extended coverage offered by lunar relays, landing opportunities at the Moon’s South Pole will be significantly limited due to the lack of direct communication between potential landing sites and ground stations on Earth.
The lunar relay award also includes services to support position, navigation, and timing capabilities, which are crucial for ensuring the safety of navigation on and around the lunar surface. Under the contract, Intuitive Machines also will enable NASA to provide communication and navigation services to customer missions in the near space region.
The initial task award will support the progressive validation of lunar relay capabilities/services for Artemis. NASA anticipates these lunar relay services will be used with human landing systems, the LTV (lunar terrain vehicle), and CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) flights.
As lunar relay services become fully operational, they will be integrated into the Near Space Network’s expanding portfolio, enhancing communications and navigation support for future lunar missions. By implementing these new capabilities reliance on NASA’s Deep Space Network will be reduced.
NASA’s goal is to provide users with communication and navigation services that are secure, reliable, and affordable, so that all NASA users receive the services required by their mission within their latency, accuracy, and availability requirements.
This is another step in NASA partnering with U.S. industry to build commercial space partners to support NASA missions, including NASA’s long-term Moon to Mars objectives for interoperable communications and navigation capabilities. This award is part of the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program and will be executed by the Near Space Network team at NASA Goddard.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
-end-
Joshua Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Near Space Network Communicating and Navigating with Missions Goddard Space Flight Center Space Communications & Navigation Program Space Operations Mission Directorate View the full article
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