[time-nuts] Gaia Satellites time challenge
Poul-Henning Kamp
phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Wed Sep 8 13:17:47 UTC 2010
"GAIA" is the successor satellite to the improbably successfull
Hipparcos satellite which gave us the most precise star-catelog we
have ever had.
The most recent newsletter from the data processing consortium
has a short overview of their time-keeping challenge: Put a Rb
at L2, synchronize (relativistically) to 1microsecond.
http://www.rssd.esa.int/SA/GAIA/docs/DPAC/web/DPAC_NL_009.pdf
Poul-Henning
PS:
Amongst many other interesting features, GAIA will sport a focal
plane covered with a half sqaremeter of CCDs, and the entire optical
bench, including mirors, is built out of SiC for thermal performance:
http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=GAIA&page=picture_of_the_week&pow=119
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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