WASHINGTON - NASA’s SpaceX 32nd commercial resupply services mission, scheduled to lift off from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in April, is heading to the International Space Station with experiments that include research on whether plant DNA responses in space correlate to human aging and disease, and measuring the precise effects of gravity on time, the agency informs. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
16 April 2025 -The ACES (Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space) mission, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) with support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aims to test Einstein’s general relativity and search for unknown forces affecting time. By comparing an ultra-precise atomic clock on the ISS with ground-based clocks worldwide, ACES will improve global time synchronization and may reveal small deviations from relativity’s predictions. U.S. scientists contribute via ground station clocks. Over 30 months, the mission could refine our understanding of gravity’s effect on time and support new applications like relativistic geodesy, which measures Earth’s shape and gravity with high precision—key for GPS accuracy, satellite operations, and space navigation.
Related: Air Force chooses radiation-hardened atomic clock from Frequency Electronics
Related: No ordinary clock: NASA's atomic clock is next step in space navigation
Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics
