NASA has said it is preparing to send its deep space atomic clock on a test flight in 2018 as a hosted payload on General Atomic\u2019s Orbital Test Bed spacecraft aboard the US Air Force Space Technology Program (STP-2) mission.The the \u201cDeep Space Atomic Clock\u201d (DSAC) aims to provide accurate onboard timekeeping for future missions, NASA said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have lofty goals for improving deep space navigation and science using DSAC,\u201d said DSAC\u2019s principal investigator Todd Ely of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.<\/p>\n
JPL scientists have been perfecting the clock for 20 years now.<\/p>\n
Currently, most missions rely on ground-based antennas paired with atomic clocks for navigation. Ground antennas send narrowly focused signals to spacecraft, which, in turn, return the signal.<\/p>\n
NASA uses the difference in time between sending a signal and receiving a response to calculate the spacecraft\u2019s location, velocity and path.<\/p>\n
This method, though reliable, could be made much more efficient. For example, a ground station must wait for the spacecraft to return a signal, so a station can only track one spacecraft at a time.<\/p>\n
This requires spacecraft to wait for navigation commands from Earth rather than making those decisions onboard and in real-time.<\/p>\n
Spacecraft using the new technology would no longer have to rely on two-way tracking. A spacecraft could use a signal sent from Earth to calculate position without returning the signal and waiting for commands from the ground, a process that can take hours.<\/p>\n
Timely location data and onboard control allows for more efficient operations, more precise manoeuvering and adjustments to unexpected situations.<\/p>\n
This paradigm shift enables spacecraft to focus on mission objectives rather than adjusting their position to point antennas earthward to close a link for two-way tracking.<\/p>\n
Additionally, this innovation would allow ground stations to track multiple satellites at once near areas like Mars, crowded with NASA science missions.<\/p>\n
In certain scenarios, the accuracy of that tracking data would exceed traditional methods by a factor of five, NASA said.<\/p>\n
DSAC is an advanced prototype of a small, low-mass atomic clock based on mercury-ion trap technology.<\/p>\n
While the atomic clocks at ground stations in the Deep Space Network are about the size of a refrigerator, DSAC is about the size of a four-slice toaster, and could be further miniaturized for future missions.<\/p>\n
The DSAC test flight will take this technology from the laboratory to the space environment.<\/p>\n
While in orbit, the DSAC mission will use the navigation signals from US GPS coupled with precise knowledge of GPS satellite orbits and clocks to confirm DSAC\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
The demonstration should confirm that DSAC can maintain time accuracy to better than two nanoseconds (.000000002 seconds) over a day, with a goal of achieving 0.3 nanosecond accuracy.<\/p>\n
Once DSAC has proven the technology, future missions can use its technology enhancements, NASA said.<\/p>\n
IANS<\/p>\n
Picture source: Alamy Image<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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