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SMART NEWS


NASA WILL CREATE A NEW TIME ZONE FOR THE MOON, CALLED COORDINATED LUNAR TIME

With dozens of lunar missions on the horizon, a standard time-keeping system for
the moon will assist with precise navigation, docking and landing

Christian Thorsberg

Daily Correspondent

April 4, 2024

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth rises over the moon's horizon, as seen from the Apollo 11 spacecraft in
1969. NASA


This week, the White House officially tasked NASA with establishing a time
standard for the moon, called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) in the Office of the
President’s memorandum, which international bodies can use to coordinate their
activities on the lunar surface.

The move comes about a year after the European Space Agency (ESA) proposed the
creation of a common time reference on the moon. Lunar missions from national
agencies and private companies are expected to heavily ramp up in the coming
years, with dozens already scheduled. Without a common reference frame,
confusion can ensue—from small inconveniences to graver problems, such as
mapping inconsistencies and navigation errors.

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“Imagine if the world wasn’t syncing their clocks to the same time—how
disruptive that might be and how challenging everyday things become,” an unnamed
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy official tells Reuters’ Joey
Roulette and Will Dunham.

“This is why we want to raise an alert now, saying let’s work together to take a
common decision,” Patrizia Tavella, who leads the time department at the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France, told Nature News’
Elizabeth Gibney in January 2023.

The White House is giving NASA until the end of 2026 to implement the final
standardized time system, which it says must have four qualities: a logical
traceability to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the global system that
regulates all Earthly time zones; enough specificity and accuracy to time very
short instants, which is important for precise scientific study and spacecraft
landings; self-sufficiency in the event that connection with Earth is lost; and
a scalability, so that other celestial objects or space environments could also
reference this time standard.

Establishing a lunar time zone will better enable communications between
spacecraft, data transfers, landing, docking and navigation. “Defining a
suitable standard—one that achieves the accuracy and resilience required for
operating in the challenging lunar environment—will benefit all spacefaring
nations,” according to the memorandum.

Lunar clocks move faster than those on Earth, gaining about 58.7 microseconds
every 24 hours. NASA / JPL


Unlike on Earth, the moon will have just one time zone and no daylight saving
time. But that doesn’t make the project any easier for NASA officials. Factors
like mass and gravity can affect how time passes—here on Earth, even the gradual
redistribution of mass due to sea ice melt is forcing scientists to reconsider
our timekeeping.

On the moon, a smaller body where the gravitational pull is much weaker, time
moves more quickly and unevenly: Lunar time gains about 58.7 microseconds per
day compared to Earth’s time, though even this can vary, depending on the
altitude and longitude where lunar clocks may be located.

NASA’s Artemis program is currently scheduled to send astronauts back to the
moon no earlier than September 2026, a few months before the deadline to
implement LTC. On later missions, the program will involve the establishment of
a lunar base, which will help enable future flights to Mars. Other countries are
also preparing to populate the moon, with China announcing a 2030 target for
astronauts to arrive on the lunar surface and India’s arrival intended by 2040.

Meanwhile, neither China nor Russia have signed the Artemis Accords, which
outline a framework for peace and responsible exploration of the moon. It
remains to be seen if the countries’ non-participation in this agreement may
affect their involvement in LTC.

Still, other officials see this step toward international lunar cooperation as
necessary progress.



“An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on
Earth,” Kevin Coggins, manager of NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation
Program, tells the Guardian’s Diana Ramirez-Simon. “It makes sense that when you
go to another body, like the moon or Mars, that each one gets its own
heartbeat.”



Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.



Christian Thorsberg | READ MORE

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago.
His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and
subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine
and Alaska Sporting Journal.


Filed Under: Moon, NASA, Outer Space, Politics, Space Travel, Time Zones, White
House
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