The Atomic Clock Ensemble in House (ACES), ESA’s state-of-the-art timekeeping facility, is now put in on the Columbus laboratory of the Worldwide House Station. This nonetheless picture, captured by exterior cameras on the Station, exhibits ACES after set up. For 25 years, cameras on the Station have documented actions in orbit, offering real-time views of operations like this one – a uncommon and memorable perspective from area.
On 25 April, the Canadian House Company’s robotic arm fastidiously extracted ACES from the SpaceX Dragon trunk and secured it onto the Columbus Exterior Payload Facility, subsequent to ESA’s area storm hunter ASIM (Atmospheric-House Interactions Monitor). Mounted on the Earth-facing facet, ACES will join with floor clocks worldwide because the Station orbits Earth sixteen occasions a day.
Developed by ESA with European business led by Airbus, ACES carries the most precise clocks ever sent to space: PHARAO, developed by the French area company CNES, and the House Hydrogen Maser from Safran Timing Applied sciences in Switzerland. Along with a complicated microwave and laser hyperlink, they’ll evaluate time between area and Earth with unprecedented accuracy, testing elementary physics and advancing future time requirements.
In March 2025, ACES arrived at NASA’s Kennedy House Heart, the place ESA, Airbus and NASA groups ready the payload for flight. ACES launched on 21 April aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 as a part of the thirty second industrial resupply providers mission to the Worldwide House Station. Right this moment, ACES was efficiently switched on for the primary time, establishing communications with floor management and stabilising its thermal methods in preparation for clock operations.
A six-month commissioning section now begins, after which ACES will embark on its two-year science mission, opening new frontiers in elementary physics and timekeeping.
