Fri, Mar 10, 2023
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.”
More News
An Amazing Experience Awaits The Chosen Few... Oshkosh, to us, seems the perfect place to get started on watching aviation recover the past couple of years... and so ANN is putting>[...]
“NBAA has a tremendous responsibility to the business aviation industry, and we are constantly collaborating with them. Our flight departments, professionals and aircraft own>[...]
Dead Reckoning Dead reckoning, as applied to flying, is the navigation of an airplane solely by means of computations based on airspeed, course, heading, wind direction, and speed,>[...]
Aero Linx: Vertical Aviation Safety Team (VAST) We are a public–private initiative to enhance worldwide flight operations safety in all segments of the vertical flight indust>[...]
We're Everywhere... Thanks To You! Even with the vast resources and incredibly far-reaching scope of the Aero-News Network, every now and then a story that should be reported on sl>[...]