LunaNet

At a glance

In short

LunaNet is a framework rather than a spacecraft: agreed standards, protocols and interface requirements so that lunar communication and navigation services from different agencies work together. NASA leads the work, and the address we link is the agency statement that announces it, because the framework itself has no page in our registry.

Time is part of the framework rather than an addition to it. A common lunar reference time is one of the requirements LunaNet carries, and NASA states that it will develop a lunar time standard for its own missions and for LunaNet. A navigation or communication service works out where a user is from how long a signal took, so its users have to share one clock.

None of it is running. No lunar time scale has been realized anywhere, and our registry gives no date for the framework itself, so the window on this page says that rather than naming a year. Every lunar clock value we publish is a model value computed from published rate figures.

Every clock value on this site is a model value computed from published rate figures: no lunar time scale has been realized, and nothing on this page is a reading taken from a clock on the Moon^[5]. The record itself sits inthe list of missions, its operator has a record of its own in National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and what a microsecond is worth in metres is inwhy microseconds matter. What would have to be built before any lunar scale runs is inhow a lunar time scale would be realized, and the four scales side by side are on the lunar clock.

Each point in the section below rests on a source listed at the foot of this page; where the point is our own arithmetic rather than someone else's document, it says so and the model is set out inhow we calculate lunar time.

Why time matters here

1. The framework exists so that missions from different agencies interoperate, and a common lunar reference time is one of the requirements it carries.
2. The 2024 memorandum states that a standard defined near the lunar gravitational environment lets assets synchronize with an accuracy that supports precision navigation and science.
3. The same memorandum sets four requirements for such a standard: traceability to UTC, accuracy for precision navigation and science, resilience to loss of contact with Earth, and scalability.
4. Every lunar clock value we publish is a model value computed from published rates, and the model itself is set out on our methodology page.

Where this record connects

Operator

• National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA

Documents

• OSTP Celestial Time Standardization memo (2024)

Other missions

• Artemis IIIPlanned — 2027
• Artemis IVPlanned — 2028
• MoonlightIn development — No date in our sources
• NovaMoonProposed — No date in our sources