Lunar clockwork
What scientists know for certain is that they need to get precision timekeeping instruments to the moon.
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Exactly who pays for lunar clocks, which type of clocks will go, and where they’ll be positioned are all questions that remain up in the air, Gramling said.
“We have to work all of this out,” she said. “I don’t think we know yet. I think it will be an amalgamation of several different things.”
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Atomic clocks, Gramling noted, are great for long-term stability, and crystal oscillators have an advantage for short-term stability.
“You never trust one clock,” Gramling added. “And you never trust two clocks.”
Clocks of various types could be placed inside satellites that orbit the moon or perhaps at the precise locations on the lunar surface that astronauts will one day visit.
As for price, an atomic clock worthy of space travel could cost around a few million dollars, according Gramling, with crystal oscillators coming in substantially cheaper.
But, Patla said, you get what you pay for.
“The very cheap oscillators may be off by milliseconds or even 10s of milliseconds,” he added. “And that is important because for navigation purposes — we need to have the clocks synchronized to 10s of nanoseconds.”
A network of clocks on the moon could work in concert to inform the new lunar time scale, just as atomic clocks do for UTC on Earth.
(There will not, Gramling added, be different time zones on the moon. “There have been conversations about creating different zones, with the answer: ‘No,’” she said. “But that could change in the future.”)
Apr 18, 2025
