NASA TESTING A COSMIC COMPASS SO NO ONE EVER GETS LOST IN SPACE
Contributed by
Elizabeth Rayne
@quothravenrayne
Jun 21, 2018
Because even NASA astronauts have a fear of ending up stranded in that alien expanse of darkness, they need a navigation tool that will help them follow the stars back to their home planet.
The type of gadget that could pull this off, a sextant, has actually been around for hundreds of years. Sextants are the reason sailors were able to find land again after long and often perilous sea voyages. They figure out where you are by using optical sight (similar to a telescope’s) to precisely measure angles between stars, whether you’re earthbound or spacebound. Astronauts can line up a star with a landmark that stands out, input the readings into a computer, and find out their position in space.
Except you can’t exactly test a NASA sextant from the ground. You need microgravity for that, which is why a hand-held sextant is now being evaluated on the ISS.
“The basic concepts are very similar to how it would be used on Earth,” NASA principal investigator Greg Holt explained. “But particular challenges on a spacecraft are the logistics; you need to be able to take a stable sighting through a window.”
More:
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/nasa-is-testing-a-cosmic-compass-so-no-one-ever-gets-lost-in-space
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