In the article on what time do astronauts keep? Manny’s answer got sidetracked into discussing Universal Time. But do astronauts actually set their watches to UTC? I always thought they used either Eastern time (time at the launch site) or Central time (time at mission control in Houston).
Then again, aeronautics in general uses Zulu time, so perhaps the astronauts do too. Perhaps I’m getting the time on their watches mixed up with the schedule they keep.
I have no idea about cosmonauts, whether they use UTC, Moscow time or Tyuratam time. I have a better idea for astronauts, who have, or had, two clocks in space.
According to a variety of Apollo astronauts’ biographies (an excellent one is Michael Collins’ Carrying the Firen), the Mercury and early Gemini astronauts used Cape time (Eastern time); when the Manned Space Center was built in Houston, and Mission Control was moved thence, the astronauts’ watches were set to Houston time. The other clock in the Apollo craft was for MET, or Mission Elapsed Time, which is the clock that they always referred to in the “Three . . . two . . . one . . . liftoff, and the clock is running” bit.
I don’t know what the SST (a.k.a. Shuttle) astronauts use, but I’m betting on Houston time. When you live there anyway, and your body is running on that cycle, it only makes sense.
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Trevor
My somewhat informed insider’s info - they have three clocks: Local Houston time, Mission Elapsed Time, and Universal Time. Typically they run on Mission Elapsed Time, as the checklists are timed off MET. However, their schedules can be variable, depending on the mission needs. Note that their sleep schedules are 6 hrs, plus personal time for daily hygiene, etc. They try to maintain 24 hr days, but some specific missions require sleep shifting from early or later, depending on launch windows for specific orbit criteria, etc. Sometimes they launch early morning, then go right into a sleep cycle. It all depends on a lot of factors for workloads, payload requirements, etc. The schedules are laid out with very strict parameters.
So MET is the most frequent, with UT(I think it’s C) second, but obviously they will refer to Houston time often because that’s what they’re used to/families are on/etc.
So the answer is “Yes.”
The Russians probably use a similar system, except Moscow time or Star City time instead of Houston time. But I don’t know as much about them.
Not that I doubted Irishman, but I just asked one of the professors here, who went up on a flight a few years back. He says pretty much the same thing as Irishman: MET for business, Houston for personal.
Hey Chronos, which flight? Do you know the payloads? Professor’s name? Curiosity burning a hole in me.
I am a crew member’s activity planner for the International Space Staion. Everyone is correct in that we use MET for Shuttle and GMT for Station. We also coordinate all of our timelines displaying MET and GMT. In addition to these times we also use DMT. This is Deemed Moscow Time for our international partners. Until we have a permanent manned presence on the Station we have seperate commands from the Russians going up to their modules that we do not control but are aware of. DMT is simply converted to GMT by subtracting 3 hours from DMT. Once we have crewmembers onboard for good, Houston will have the majority of control and use MET and GMT throughout the mission.
Well, Irishman, I don’t know any of the details, but his name’s Dr. Loren Acton, and he’s a solar physicist. I’m pretty sure that he was a mission specialist, but that covers a lot of ground. That enough info for you to go on?
And while we’re at it, what exactly do you do, “inside”? I see from your profile that you’re in Houston, but no job title listed.
Chronos, I build astronaut tools for spacewalks.
Do you know how recent his flight was? Last 5 years?
I don’t know when, exactly, he went up, other than that it was before my time here. A good guess would be eleven years ago, at the last solar maximum. There’s always more solar research done at the peaks of the cycle. There’s got to be a listing of crews for all of the Shuttle missions somewhere on the Web…
Flash, stop the presses… Just found it. 'Twas STS 51-F, aboard the Challenger, from July 29th to August 6, 1985. He was a payload specialist, and the primary payload was Spacelab. It doesn’t say what, specifically, he did.
Loren Acton worked for Lockheed at the time.