Why NASA is preparing to send clocks to the moon before astronauts arrive
Moon
. And that simple fact is creating a big challenge for
NASA
and its partners as they prepare to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.
Under the laws of physics, seconds on the Moon tick slightly faster than on Earth because of differences in gravity. According to scientists, a lunar day runs about 56 microseconds shorter than a day on Earth. That might sound tiny, but in space exploration, it matters enormously.
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'When you're navigating relative to the Moon, time needs to be relative to the Moon,' says Cheryl Gramling, who leads position, navigation, and timing standards at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Even nanoseconds count when you're landing spacecraft, operating rovers, or keeping astronauts safe.
A new lunar time scale
The White House has asked NASA to create a
lunar time standard
called
Coordinated Lunar Time
(LTC) by the end of 2026, the same year astronauts are due to land as part of the Artemis programme. The plan involves placing ultra-precise atomic clocks on the Moon and in orbit, linked together much like the network that keeps Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Earth.
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'Everyone has to use the same reference, or we haven't solved the problem at all,' says Philip Linden of Open Lunar, a non-profit space research group.
Without this standard, navigation errors could stretch kilometres, and communications between missions could fall out of sync.
Why it's urgent
The Moon is set to become a busy territory. NASA, the European Space Agency, and other partners are planning permanent bases, while countries like China and private companies are eyeing their missions. 'It's foundational for everything we want to do in space,' says NASA's Kevin Coggins.
LTC won't just help astronauts on the Moon. It will also be a blueprint for Mars and beyond. 'We need to do things on the Moon to learn how to do them at Mars,' Gramling says.
For future lunar residents, there will be no time zones, just one agreed system, though life on the Moon will feel very different. Daylight there lasts about 14 Earth days, followed by two weeks of darkness.
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