Going one more step ahead for the future exploration of deep space, NASA has successfully demonstrated X-ray navigation. It is a method that would allow spacecraft to navigate in deep space without individual instructions. This baptized celestial Global Positioning System (GPS) is based mainly on pulsars and their emission of electromagnetic radiation. Also, that can act as cosmic beacons.
Without these pulsars, spacecraft must communicate with Earth regularly to confirm their position in space. But such communication – through systems such as NASA’s Deep Space Network, a group of giant satellite dishes is time-consuming. Also, that is a costly and less efficient technology the as the probe travels further away from the Earth.
NASA tests its Celestial GPS, X-ray positioning
In November 2017, the Composition Explorer of the Interior of the Neutron Star (NICER) spent a day and a half looking at a handful of pulsars. Also, that quickly spin stellar remains that emit rays of powerful radiation as they rotate. By measuring small changes in pulse arrival time. So, the NICER could locate its location within a 5-kilometer error margin. Also, this information was released on January 11 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland.
Pulsars are the rotating and ultra-dense leftovers of the exploited stars. Some emit radiation bursts as often as every few thousandths of a second. For decades, aerospace engineers have dreamed of using these constant repetition signals for navigation, just as they use the regular ticking of atomic clocks on GPS satellites.
In November 2016, China launched an experimental pulsar navigation satellite, called XPNAV-1. He studied the Crab pulsar, 2,000 parsecs (6,500 light years) away in the constellation Taurus, as an initial test of whether it could adhere to X-ray signals.
Later, NICER was installed on the space station in June 2017. His primary job is to measure the size of pulsars to understand better the ultra-dense matter that composes them. The pulsar navigation experiment, known as the Station Explorer for Synchronization and X-ray Navigation Technology (SEXTANT), is an advantage.
What is NASA Next Plan?
NICER used 52 small X-ray telescopes to study them, but a telescope of this type could probably do the job, said Keith Gendreau, a NASA astrophysicist. The instrument can weigh as little as 5 kilograms, so it is relatively economical to add it to space missions, where more mass means more money to put it into orbit. The team plans to repeat the experiment in the coming months, hoping to reduce the margin of error to one kilometer or less.
Gendreau points out that the famous ‘golden disk’ aboard NASA’s Voyager spacecraft carries a map that points to the location of the Solar System about 14 pulsars. If an alien civilization ever finds the record, it could be used to locate the Earth. “When I was a kid, I heard Carl Sagan talk about the golden record,” says Gendreau. “And now we’re doing it.”
via: Nature