NASA has confirmed that it is developing a new lunar time system. Back in April, the White House published a memorandum instructing NASA to create a new standard by 2026. Five months later, the space agency confirmed that it would work with "US government stakeholders, partners and international standards organizations" to create Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC).
To understand why the moon needs its own time zone, it is enough to turn to Einstein. His theories of relativity state that since time varies with speed and gravity, it flows slightly faster on our moon (due to weaker gravity). As a result, the Earth's clock on the moon would advance by about 56 microseconds per day—enough to disrupt calculations that could compromise future missions that require precision.
«For an object traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel a distance of about 168 football fields. If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who does not compensate for the effects of relativity during the day will think that the orbiting astronaut is about 168 football fields away from where the astronaut actually is.” — Cheryl Gramling, chief of NASA's Synchronization and Standards Division
The initiative to develop lunar time will be led by NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. One of the goals of LTC is to scale to other celestial bodies in the future, including Mars. The temporal standard will be determined by the average value of the atomic clock on the Moon, although their location is still being debated. This value is similar to how scientists calculate Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Earth.
NASA plans to send manned missions back to the moon as part of its Artemis program. Artemis-2, scheduled for September 2025, intends to send four people on a lunar flyby. A year later, Artemis-3 aims to land astronauts near the south pole of the Moon. However, in view of all the delays, there are doubts that everything will pass within the currently set deadlines.
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