NASA’s Newest Technology That Will Pin Down Earth’s Position In Space And Time

NASA and several other partners, earlier this year, made a successful test to a new technology that will definitely make it easier to measure Earth's position in space and time, improving navigation of space missions as well as geophysical studies of Earth.

For the first time ever, The Feb. 5 tests revealed that it is truly possible to link up 33 next-generation telescopes and be able to perform broadband observations according to a report on Headlines News. "The successful tests demonstrate the viability of the new broadband antenna technology for making the kinds of observations needed for improved accuracy in measurements of the very-fine-scale shape of Earth," said Benjamin Phillips in a statement. Benjamin Phillips leads NASA's Earth Surface & Interior focus area at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

According to a news report on Space, NASA is specifically on improvements to VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry). VLBI is a technique which lets multiple radio telescopes to simultaneously work together in order to make more accurate measurements.

Moreover, a signal from a radio-emitting object like quasar is collected by several telescopes. The researchers accordingly calculate the distance between the telescopes by means of comparing the times upon which the radio signal arrived at different receivers. NASA officials remarked that this new tech lets scientists determine that timing more accurately. This makes the measurements of the Earth's rotation and orientation more precise. This new network is known as the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS). And compared to the old network, VGOS includes more than a few improvements.

The size of the dishes of VGOS has been improved. The new dishes have a width of 39 to 42 feet (12 to 13 meters). They are much smaller than the ones used in the older network with a width of 65 to 100 feet. Because the smaller dishes can quickly move, VGOS can do 100 observations an hour.

The testing, however, did not come without difficulty. At the outset, NASA and its partners needed to sort out some technical problems in order to ensure that VGOS would correctly work. The weather, which is actually different at all three sites, definitely makes it much difficult to account for the effects of a portion of the upper atmosphere which interferes with radio waves. On top of that, the stations had to work in the midst of interference from radio towers and cell towers as well as other radio sources.

"These and other technical issues have been dealt with. We have a few more challenges down the road, but they are manageable. We now know that the new global system can be used the way it was intended," Stephen Merkowitz said in a statement.  Stephen Merkowitz is the manager of NASA's Space Geodesy Project.