4 ms·
It is not clear from the article, and these are noob questions: does it mean there were no other time dilation effects to take into account? In other words, is
by AnonHP 2y ago
It is not clear from the article, and these are noob questions: does it mean there were no other time dilation effects to take into account? In other words, is the adjustment done within the satellite clocks enough for the signal processing near or on the moon to get the position since the moon is so far off)?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mandevil 2y agoGPS has always had to account for relativistic time dilation, it's the first human scale issue where relativistic correction became necessary. (This would be general relativity, incidentally, not special: it's the effect of the Earth's gravity on the atomic clocks in orbit.) But that's because the whole system needs absurd levels of accuracy to be useful at all: at 8 km/s of orbital velocity every source of error creates enormous error bars on the ground. I also know that NASA has experimented for years with satellites (even all the way up in GSO) using GPS signals for position-finding, so this is further out but not unprecedented work.