lunartime.org

Organization

European Space Agency

European space agency; it runs the Moonlight programme and set out the case for a common lunar reference time.

At a glance

Every value in this table comes from the entry in our organizations registry; the links below lead to the pages it connects to.
FieldValue
Short nameESA
TypeSpace agency
BasedInternational
Address we linkwww.esa.int
TrackerESA — Moonlight and LunaNet
Documents on this siteNone yet
Papers on this site2 readings
Facts on this page3, each with its own source

Key facts

  • ESA reported that agencies meeting at ESTEC in November 2022 agreed on the importance and urgency of defining a common lunar reference time. [1]Official
  • Moonlight is the agency's lunar communication and navigation programme. [2]Official
  • The NovaMoon payload is proposed for the agency's Argonaut lander and combines retroreflectors, atomic clocks and radio links. [3]

In short

ESA put the question on the table before the policy documents did. It reported the 2022 meeting at ESTEC where agencies agreed that a common lunar reference time was both important and urgent, and it runs Moonlight, its lunar communication and navigation programme. A proposed geodetic and timing payload for its Argonaut lander would carry clocks and retroreflectors to the surface.

Every clock value on this site is a model value computed from published rate figures: no lunar time scale has been realized, and nothing on this page is a reading taken from a clock on the Moon[4]Official. The record itself sits inthe list of organizations, and the wider background is inwhat Coordinated Lunar Time is.

What it decides

  1. Which time reference the Moonlight communication and navigation service distributes to its users.
  2. Whether European lunar infrastructure carries clocks able to realize a lunar scale.
  3. How the European position is put to the bodies that would adopt such a scale.

Where this record connects

Papers we have read

Missions and programmes it runs

On the tracker

Other organizations

Sources

  1. Telling time on the Moon — European Space Agency, . Official document. Verified .
  2. Moonlight — European Space Agency, . Official document. Verified .
  3. NovaMoon: A Strategic Lunar Reference Station for Positioning, Timing, and Largely Enhanced Science in the Earth-Moon System — Serena Molli, Agnes Fienga, Pascale Defraigne and others — arXiv:2602.08432, . Peer-reviewed. Verified .
  4. Resolution on the establishment of a coordinated lunar time standard by international agreement — International Astronomical Union, Commission A3 — XXXII General Assembly, . Official document. Verified .

Last verified