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Rockn aims to atomic clocks portable
Rockn aims to atomic clocks portable










rockn aims to atomic clocks portable

With the new Deep Space Atomic Clock, “we can transition to what we call one-way tracking,” Seubert said. By measuring a signal’s round-trip time within a billionth of a second, ground-based atomic clocks in the Deep Space Network help pinpoint the spacecraft’s location.

rockn aims to atomic clocks portable

Earth-based antennas send signals to spacecraft, which the spacecraft echo back. “Every single spacecraft exploring deep space today relies on navigation that’s performed back here at Earth,” said Seubert, who’s based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. How would the clock change space navigation? Here’s a preview of what the clock could mean for future spacefaring. Outfitted on future spaceships or satellites, this mini atomic clock could “completely change the way we navigate spacecraft through deep space,” Jill Seubert, deputy principal investigator for the project, said June 10 in a news conference.Īfter the prototype launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., researchers will monitor its performance in low-Earth orbit for one year. But unlike those refrigerator-sized timepieces, the toaster-sized DSAC is small enough to carry aboard a spacecraft. That’s on par with the ground-based atomic clocks used for the agency’s Deep Space Network - the cadre of earthbound facilities that use radio antennas to communicate with missions throughout the solar system. NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock, or DSAC for short, counts off the seconds with ticks that are about 50 times more uniform than those of atomic clocks onboard GPS satellites.












Rockn aims to atomic clocks portable