{"id":28738,"date":"2016-08-08T05:39:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T12:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe-to-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality"},"modified":"2017-06-04T10:00:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T17:00:35","slug":"navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe-to-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe-to-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality","title":{"rendered":"Navigating in deep space: The recipe to make Interstellar travel a reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe-to-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester publish a paper that reveals a spacecraft\u2019s position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated autonomously, using a small X-ray telescope on board the craft, to an accuracy of 2km. The method uses X-rays emitted from pulsars, which can be used to work out the position of a craft in space in 3D to an accuracy of 30 km at the distance of Neptune.<\/p>\n<p>Pulsars are dead stars that emit radiation in the form of X-rays and other electromagnetic waves. For a certain type of pulsar, called \u2018millisecond pulsars\u2019, the pulses of radiation occur with the regularity and precision of an atomic clock and could be used much like GPS in space.<\/p>\n<p>The paper, published in Experimental Astronomy, details simulations undertaken using data, such as the pulsar positions and a craft\u2019s distance from the Sun, for a European Space Agency feasibility study of the concept. The simulations took these data and tested the concept of triangulation by pulsars with current technology (an X-ray telescope designed and developed by the University of Leicester) and position, velocity and timing analysis undertaken by NPL. This generated a list of usable pulsars and measurements of how accurately a small telescope can lock onto these pulsars and calculate a location.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/3tags.org\/article\/navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe-to-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality\">http:\/\/3tags.org\/article\/navigating-in-deep-space-the-recipe...-a-reality<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester publish a paper that reveals a spacecraft\u2019s position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated autonomously, using a small X-ray telescope on board the craft, to an accuracy [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60887,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738\/revisions\/60887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}