[time-nuts] Re: constructing a moon base

[Jeremy Nichols]

What will be the effect of the lunar ‘mascons’ on orbital time and position
satellites? As I recall from Apollo, the effects were significant in
hitting the targeted landing place—but the orbits were much lower, which
increases the effect of each mascon.



On Wed, Sep 29, 2021 at 7:54 AM Bob kb8tq <kb8tq at n1k.org> wrote:

> Hi
>
> My *guess* (and it’s only a guess) is that before you get to the “road
> building”
> phase, there will already be at least a basic set of satellites providing
> coverage
> for the moon. However much they cost today, they will be way cheaper then.
> They also would be useful for a wide range of activities.
>
> Does that mean full GNSS on the moon? Who knows ….. It does mean that part
> of the com / time transfer stuff could be offloaded.
>
> Bob
>
>
> > On Sep 29, 2021, at 10:30 AM, Chris Howard <chris at elfpen.com> wrote:
> >
> > My employment involves the design and manufacturing of construction
> equipment.
> >
> > I had a conversation today about what will be needed for
> time/positioning when GPS is not in sight, like road-building on the far
> side of the moon.
> > The context was timestamp coordination between multiple data sources in
> the vehicle environment, ntpd, and similar things.
> >
> > No GPS probably means cesium on the road grader?
>
> --
Jeremy Nichols
Sent from my iPad 6.