The White House has taken a groundbreaking step by instructing Nasa to establish a unified standard of time for the moon and other celestial bodies, aiming to set international norms in the burgeoning lunar race among nations and private enterprises.
The directive, emanating from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), tasks Nasa with collaborating across US government departments to devise a strategy by the end of 2026 for what it terms Coordinated Lunar Time (CLT). This initiative addresses the variances in time perception due to differing gravitational forces on celestial bodies compared to Earth, affecting lunar spacecraft and satellites' precision requirements.
