As Focus on Space Grows, Stakeholders Seek Standardization

The ESA has begun a push for a standardized lunar time zone, after the idea was floated in the Netherlands in late 2022.

The change would create a common lunar reference time for use between all space operators, moving away from the current system where each mission is governed by its parent country’s time zone. While similar issues were brought up in the establishment of the International Space Station, Moon missions will be using a common ‘LunaNet’ architecture for local communications and navigation services. Past missions relied on a system of relays between Earth and the Moon to keep onboard chronometric syncing, but expanded international operations on the surface means that system holds too many variables for accurate timekeeping.

“LunaNet is a framework of mutually agreed-upon standards, protocols and interface requirements allowing future lunar missions to work together, conceptually similar to what we did on Earth for joint use of GPS and Galileo,” explains Javier Ventura-Traveset, ESA's Moonlight Navigation Manager, coordinating ESA contributions to LunaNet. "Now, in the lunar context, we have the opportunity to agree on our interoperability approach from the very beginning, before the systems are actually implemented.”

Navigational systems engineer Pietro Giordano said the move to a lunar time zone is an important one. "During this meeting, we agreed on the importance and urgency of defining a common lunar reference time, which is internationally accepted and towards which all lunar systems and users may refer to. A joint international effort is now being launched towards achieving this.”

FMI: www.esa.int