NASA News
NASA Has Invented an Incredible New Space Navigation Technique NASA has invented a new type of autonomous space navigation that could see human-made spacecraft heading into the far reaches of the Solar System, and even farther - by using pulsars as guide stars. It's called Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT (named after an 18th-century nautical navigation instrument ), and it uses X-ray technology to see millisecond pulsars, using them much like a GPS uses satellites. "This demonstration is a breakthrough for future deep space exploration," said SEXTANT project manager Jason Mitchell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "As the first to demonstrate X-ray navigation fully autonomously and in real-time in space, we are now leading the way." Pulsars are highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron stars - the result of a massive star's core collapsing and subsequently exploding. As they spin, they em...
