NASA confirmed On Friday, he develops a new Lunar time system for the Moon. The White House released the policy memorandum in April. It directs NASA to create a new standard Until 2026. More than five months later (government time), the space agency’s confirmation says it will work with “US government stakeholders, partners and international standards organizations” to establish the Coordinated Lunar Clock (LTC).
You don’t have to look to Einstein to understand why the moon needs its own time zone. His theories of relativity say that because time changes relative to speed and gravity, time moves slightly faster in our celestial neighbor (due to weaker gravity). So the Earth clock on the Moon would gain about 56 microseconds per day—enough to throw off calculations that could jeopardize future missions that require precision.
“For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of about 168 football fields,” said Cheryl Gramling, NASA’s head of timing and standards, in a press release. “If one were to orbit the Moon, an observer on Earth who had not compensated for the effects of relativity over the course of a day would think that the orbiting astronaut was about 168 football fields away from where the astronaut actually was.”
In April, a White House memo directed NASA to work with the Departments of Commerce, Defense, State, and Transportation to develop a course to implement LTC by the end of 2026. Global stakeholders, esp Signatories to the Artemis Agreementswill play a role. Established in 2020, the agreements cover a growing collection of 43 countries committed to the norms expected to be met in space. In particular, there are China and Russia refused to join
NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program will lead the initiative. One of LTC’s goals is to scale to other celestial bodies in the future, including Mars. The time standard will be determined by the weight-averaged atomic clocks on the Moon, although their locations are still being debated. Such a weighted average is similar to how scientists calculate Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
NASA plans to send manned missions to the Moon through the Artemis program. Artemis 2, It is planned for September 2025plans to send four people on a orbit around the Moon. A year later, Artemis 3 aims to land astronauts on the Moon’s South Pole.
