Pulsar-Based Spacecraft Navigation Technology

The Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), recently selected by NASA as its next Explorer Mission of Opportunity, will gather scientific data revealing the physics of the densest matter allowed in nature, and - from the same platform - will demonstrate a groundbreaking navigation technology. The multi-purpose mission, known as NICER/SEXTANT (Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology), consists of 56 X-ray telescopes in a compact bundle, their associated silicon detectors, and many other advanced technologies. The SEXTANT mission will demonstrate the use of pulsars - nature's lighthouses - as navigational beacons. With its sensitive telescopes, SEXTANT will lock onto multiple pulsars, allowing it to determine its precise location in the galaxy. Future spacecraft could navigate to distant planets using this new capability in much the same way that we use GPS on Earth.

Transcript

00:00:00 [ SFX ] For centuries, sailors have traversed the seas with the help of a sextant and the stars. Now a team led by scientists and engineers at NASA Goddard is taking navigation by the stars to a whole new level. Future spacecraft will have the capability to explore the vastness of space with unprecedented awareness of their own place in the Galaxy. NASA's SEXTANT mission will demonstrate the use of pulsars, nature's stellar lighthouses, as navigational beacons. Pulsars are small, dense stellar remnants that regularly sweep beams of energy our way. Successive sweeps produce pulses timed so precisely that they rival atomic clocks on Earth and that's exactly how NASA plans to use them. With its sensitive telescopes, SEXTANT will lock onto multiple pulsars, allowing it to determine its precise location in the Galaxy.

00:01:02 Future spacecraft will navigate to distant planets using this new capability in much the same way that we use GPS to travel to unfamiliar locations on Earth. Pulsar-based spacecraft navigation is still in its development stage, but the SEXTANT proof of concept mission could be tested on the International Space Station as soon as 2015. [ SFX ]