NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock is working toward giving far-flung space explorers more autonomy when navigating. In a new paper published in the journal
Nature, the mission reports progress in their work to improve the ability of space-based atomic clocks to measure time consistently over long periods.
Known as stability, this feature also impacts the operation of GPS satellites that help people navigate on Earth, so this work also has the potential to increase the autonomy of next-generation GPS spacecraft. Spacecraft that venture beyond our Moon rely on communication with ground stations on Earth to figure out where they are and where they’re going.