Pulsar-based Navigation and Time Keeping for Space Exploration

All interested researchers and students are invited to attend. No registration is required for the short course. Seating is limited and is available on a first come, first served basis.

Program

Talk 1 – “Pulsars and Pulsar Timing” – Maura McLaughlin, West Virginia University

• What are Pulsars?
• Emission properties at radio, X-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths
• Pulsar Timing
• Sources of Timing Noise
• Measuring the Gravitational Wave Background

Talk 2 – “Deep Space Navigation” – Tomas Martin-Mur, JPL

• Overview of deep space navigation techniques
• Comparison of alternatives
• Navigation Kalman Filters, orbit propagation and sensor fusion
• The necessity of accurate clocks

Talk 3 – “Pulsar Observation Instrumentation” – Zaven Arzoumanian, NASA GSFC

• Radio instrumentation: dishes, dipoles, and more
• The radiometer equation for timing accuracy
• X-ray instrumentation: focusing, concentrating, or collimating
• Key accuracy contributors to X-ray timing
• The NICER X-ray Timing Instrument

Talk 4 – “History of Pulsar-Based Navigation Developments” – Suneel Sheikh, ASTER Labs, Inc.

• Early Navigation Methods Following the Discovery of Pulsars 
• The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s USA Flight Experiment
• DARPA Research and Development Programs
• European and Chinese Pulsar Navigation Initiatives
• NASA’s NICER/SEXTANT On-Orbit Demonstration
• Related Concepts Using Variable Celestial Sources