Five things to know about the atomic clock of NASA's deep space

NASA sends
a new technology to space on June 22 that will change the way we navigate our
Spaceship – even how we send astronauts to Mars and beyond. Built by NASA jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the atomic clock in space is a
technological demonstration that will help the spacecraft to navigate autonomously
through the deep space. No bigger than a toaster, the instrument will
tested in Earth orbit for a year, with the goal of being ready for future missions
to other worlds.

Here are five
Key information about the atomic clock of NASA's deep space:

It works a lot like GPS

The deep space
Atomic Clock is a brother of the atomic clocks with which you interact every day
your smart phone. Atomic clocks onboard satellites allow your phone's GPS
application to get from point A to point B by calculating where you are
Earth, depending on the time required for the signal to pass from the satellite to
your phone.

But spaceship
do not have GPS to help them find their way around the great outdoors; instead, navigation
teams rely on atomic clocks on Earth to determine location data. Further we
Earth travel, the longer this communication takes a long time. The atom of deep space
Clock is the first atomic clock designed to fly aboard a spaceship
beyond Earth's orbit, greatly improving the process.

This will help our spaceship navigate
in an autonomous way

Today we
navigate deep space using giant antennas on Earth to send signals to spacecraft,
who then send these signals to Earth. Atomic clocks on Earth measure the
time, it takes a signal to make this trip back and forth. Only then can human
browsers on Earth use large antennas to tell the spacecraft where it is and
where to go.

If we want
humans to explore the solar system, we need a faster and better way for the
astronauts aboard a spaceship to find out where they are, ideally without needing
send signals to the Earth. An atomic clock in the far space of a spaceship
allow it to receive a signal from the Earth and determine its location immediately
using an on-board navigation system.

It only loses 1 second out of 9 million
years

Any atomic
The clock must be incredibly accurate to be used in this type of navigation:
clock that is off even by a single second could mean the difference between
land on Mars and miss it by miles. In the ground tests, the Deep Space Atomic
The clock has been revealed up to 50 times more stable than atomic clocks on GPS
satellites. If the mission can prove this stability in space, it will be one of the
the most accurate clocks in the universe.

It keeps the exact time using mercury
ions

Your wristwatch and your atomic clocks keep the same time
ways: by measuring the vibrations of a quartz crystal. An electrical pulse is sent
through the quartz so that it vibrates regularly. This continuous vibration acts
like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, ticking how long has elapsed.
But a wristwatch can easily derive from a few seconds to a few minutes on a given datum.
period.

An atomic clock
uses atoms to maintain a high accuracy in its quartz vibration measurements.
The length of a second is measured by the frequency of light released by
specific atoms, which are the same throughout the universe. But the atoms in
current clocks can be sensitive to external magnetic fields and temperature
changes. The atomic clock in deep space uses mercury ions – less than the amount
usually found in two boxes of tuna – which are contained in electromagnetic traps. Using a
internal device to control the ions makes them less vulnerable to external
forces.

It will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy
rocket

The deep space
The atomic clock will fly on the satellite Orbital Test Bed, which will be launched on SpaceX
Falcon Heavy rocket with about two dozen other satellites of government, military and research institutions.
The launch is scheduled for June 22, 2019 at 20:30. PAH (23:30 EDT)
from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be broadcast live here:

https://www.nasa.gov/live