Re: [LEAPSECS] Comments on Civil Time decision tree

From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk_at_phk.freebsd.dk>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:35:15 +0200

In message <20050926185445.GA16446_at_asu.edu>, Randy Kaelber writes:
>On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 02:33:00PM -0400, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
>>
>> I would suppose that such a space probe would have little need to be
>> synchronized with earthly solar time, and thus might be best off
>> operating on TAI, with any adjustments to UTC for the sake of humans
>> observing it on Earth being done at the Earthly end of things.
>
>That's the way we do it for interplanetary stuff now. Data from
>spacecraft are typically returned in spacecraft clock time (SCLK, which is
>pronounced "sclock") and then translated to whatever time base you want it
>in. Right now, the clock on Mars Odyssey (as I type this) should be
>reading 2/0812228033. Dealing with things like leap seconds, local time
>conventions, and other time conversions are all handled here on Earth.

But that strategy breaks down for human space flight ?

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Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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Received on Mon Sep 26 2005 - 13:46:04 PDT

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