NASA Architecture for Solar System Time Distribution

Abstract

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developing an architecture for communication, navigation, and time distribution to support the future human exploration of space. Foreseeable applications span a wide range of demands for time services, including event logging by robotic and human explorers, networking of cooperative elements on a planetary surface, time transfer for navigation, and time synchronization and correlation for communication and science. This paper describes the key attributes of a flexible approach designed to meet those demands.