Abstract: | At the first German Spacelab Mission D1 in autumn 1985 a navigation experiment was flown for seven days on board the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger. Two atomic clocks, one Ce- and one Rb-standard, were part of the spaceborne equipment and were carried back to earth. The Ce-clock was compared with a ground based Cs-clock by a two-way microwave link at 1.5 GHz in the periods of ground contact, while the comparison between the flying Cs- and Rb-clock occurred continuously. The influence of the space flight on clock rates was determined by comparison with many series of measurements on the ground before and after the D-1 Mission. Comparisons of the flight clocks at Cape Kennedy with the reference clock in Germany were performed via GPS. Results of the data evaluation will be presented with special attention to temperature effects. Unexpected rate oscillations between the two flying clocks correlated with the attitude of the space vehicle were discovered. |
Published in: |
Proceedings of the 19th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting December 1 - 3, 1989 Sheraton Hotel Redondo Beach, California |
Pages: | 325 - 336 |
Cite this article: | Hammesfahr, J., Nau, H., Starker, S., "PERFORMANCE OF ATOMIC CLOCKS FLOWN ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE EXPERIMENT NAVEX," Proceedings of the 19th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting, Redondo Beach, California, December 1987, pp. 325-336. |
Full Paper: |
ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit
Sign In |