![]() Two-way navigation means that no matter how deep into space a mission goes, it still has to wait for a signal carrying commands to cross the vast distances between planets. If I’m standing in front of a mountain and I shout, the longer it takes for the echo to come back to me, the farther away the mountain is.” Seubert said, “It’s the same concept as an echo. Only then can navigators send directions to the spaceship, telling it where to go. The amount of time tells them how far away the spacecraft is and how fast it’s going. Exact clocks on the ground measure how long it takes the signal to make this two-way journey. Instead, navigators use giant antennas on Earth to send a signal to the spacecraft, which bounces it back to Earth. Atomic clocks on GPS satellites aren’t accurate enough to send directions to spacecraft when being off by even less than a second could mean missing a planet by miles. Deep Space Atomic Clock will change that by enabling onboard autonomous navigation, or self-driving spacecraft.”Ĭurrently, spacecraft flying beyond Earth’s orbit doesn’t have a GPS to find their way through space. Jill Seubert, the deputy principal investigator, said, “Every spacecraft exploring deep space is steered by navigators here on Earth. If the Deep Space Atomic Clock’s trial year in space goes well, it could pave the way for a future of one-way navigation in which astronauts are guided by a GPS-like system across the surface of the Moon or can safely fly their own missions to Mars and beyond. ![]() In late June, the clock will launch on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket into Earth’s orbit for one year, where it will test whether it can help spacecraft locate themselves in space. ![]() The clock is much like a GPS-like instrument- small and stable enough to fly on a spacecraft. NASA navigators have recently built deep space atomic clock, a toaster-sized device that will allow spacecraft to safely and autonomously fly themselves to destinations like the Moon and Mars without needing to rely on that data from Earth. This method of navigation means that no matter how far a mission travels through the solar system, our spacecraft are still tethered to the ground, waiting for commands from our planet. Navigators must meet the challenges of calculating the exact speeds and orientations of a rotating Earth, a rotating target destination, as well as a moving spacecraft, while all are simultaneously traveling in their orbits around the Sun.
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