The White House has issued a policy memo directing NASA to create a new time standard for the Moon by 2026. Known as Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC), this official time reference will play a crucial role in guiding future lunar missions amidst a burgeoning 21st-century space race involving the United States, China, Japan, India, and Russia.

The memo outlines NASA's collaboration with various departments, including Commerce, Defense, State, and Transportation, to devise a plan for implementing LTC by December 31, 2026. International cooperation, especially among the signatories of the Artemis Accords – a set of principles governing space exploration and operations – will also be sought. Notably, China and Russia currently do not belong to this group.

In a White House press release, Steve Welby, the OSTP Deputy Director for National Security, emphasized the importance of establishing celestial time standards for safety and accuracy as missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond become more frequent. Welby underlined that a consistent time definition among space operators is vital for space situational awareness, navigation, and communication, enabling interoperability across the U.S. government and international partners.

Time's relativity, as per Einstein's theories, will be factored into this new lunar time standard. Due to the Moon's weaker gravity and differences in movement compared to Earth, time moves slightly faster on the lunar surface, with an average gain of 58.7 microseconds per Earth day. Adopting a single standard will help synchronize technology and facilitate missions that demand precise timing, as countries like the U.S. plan research, exploration, and eventually permanent residence on the Moon.

Kevin Coggins, NASA's space communications and navigation chief, clarified that clocks on the Moon would behave differently than those on Earth due to this time disparity. Coggins, citing the atomic clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory, stated the need for a consistent time reference on the Moon, comparable to the heartbeat that synchronizes everything on Earth.

The White House expects LTC to coordinate with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is currently used to measure all of Earth's time zones. The aim is to enable accurate navigation, support scientific endeavors, and maintain its resilience even if communication with Earth is lost. Additionally, the new lunar time standard should be scalable for space environments "beyond the Earth-Moon system."

NASA's Artemis program is at the forefront of these lunar missions, with plans to send astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s. Artemis 2, a crewed mission set to orbit the Moon with four astronauts onboard, is now scheduled for a September 2025 launch. Following this, Artemis 3 aims to put humans back on the Moon's surface in 2026.

While China aims to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, becoming a key competitor in the global space race, other countries like India, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea, and private companies have also demonstrated their lunar ambitions in recent years. The Moon's significance extends beyond scientific exploration, as it serves as a critical stop on the path to Mars, allowing for technology testing, resource mining, and meeting the fuel and supply needs for future human missions to the Red Planet.