European space officials have called for establishing a separate time zone on the moon. The European Space Agency (ESA) said the idea was discussed at a recent meeting held at the agency’s Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands. ESA said the effort is part of a larger project to create a complete communication and navigation system for the moon. Space officials say such a system will be necessary to support a growing number of planned launches to the moon in coming years.

欧洲太空官员呼吁在月球上建立一个单独的时区。欧洲航天局 (ESA) 表示，最近在该机构位于荷兰的空间研究和技术中心举行的会议上讨论了这个想法。 ESA 表示，这项工作是一个更大项目的一部分，该项目旨在为月球创建一个完整的通信和导航系统。太空官员表示，这样的系统对于支持未来几年越来越多的登月计划是必不可少的。

A series of space operations around the moon will require spacecraft and controllers “to communicate together and fix their positions independently from Earth,” ESA said in a statement. Currently, moon operations run on the time of the country that launched the spacecraft. But ESA officials say this will have to change when more countries and private space companies start launching their own moon missions. ESA has partnered with the American space agency NASA on several planned lunar projects, or missions. ESA helped build NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which is expected to transport American astronauts back to the moon by the mid-2020s. NASA reported it was pleased with Orion’s last uncrewed test mission late last year. ESA has also been involved in planning and development operations for a lunar project called Gateway. Private companies have been asked to develop living spaces, called habitats, for NASA and ESA, as part of the Gateway project.

欧空局在一份声明中表示，围绕月球的一系列太空行动将需要航天器和控制器“相互通信并独立于地球确定其位置”。目前，月球运行以发射航天器的国家的时间运行。但欧空局官员表示，当更多国家和私人航天公司开始启动自己的月球任务时，这种情况将不得不改变。 ESA 已与美国航天局 NASA 合作开展多个计划中的月球项目或任务。 ESA 帮助建造了 NASA 的猎户座飞船，该飞船有望在 2020 年代中期将美国宇航员送回月球。美国宇航局报告说，它对猎户座去年年底的最后一次无人测试任务感到满意。 ESA 还参与了名为 Gateway 的月球项目的规划和开发操作。作为 Gateway 项目的一部分，私营公司被要求为 NASA 和 ESA 开发称为栖息地的生活空间。

NASA has described Gateway as a small spaceship that would remain in orbit around the moon. It would be designed as a living space for astronauts and as a laboratory for science activities. Gateway would give the astronauts a base for making trips to the moon, and possibly in the future to Mars. Pietro Giordano is a navigation system engineer for ESA. He said after the issue was considered at the recent ESA meeting, “a joint international effort is now being launched” to establish a lunar time zone. ESA says the planned lunar communications and navigation systems will perform much better if they “employ the same timescale, along with the many other crewed and uncrewed missions they will support.”

NASA 将 Gateway 描述为一艘将留在月球轨道上的小型宇宙飞船。它将被设计成宇航员的生活空间和科学活动的实验室。 Gateway 将为宇航员提供前往月球旅行的基地，并可能在未来前往火星。 Pietro Giordano 是 ESA 的导航系统工程师。他说，在最近的欧空局会议上审议了这个问题后，“现在正在发起国际联合努力”以建立月球时区。欧空局表示，如果计划中的月球通信和导航系统“采用相同的时间尺度，以及它们将支持的许多其他载人和无人任务，它们的性能将会好得多。”

NASA also had to deal with the time question while designing and building the International Space Station (ISS), which is nearing the 25th anniversary of the launch of its first piece. The ISS does not have its own time zone. Instead, it runs on Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, which is based on time kept by atomic clocks. This helps ease the time difference between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, as well as other space partners in Russia, Japan and Europe. ESA says the international team looking at establishing a lunar time zone is debating whether a single organization should set and keep time on the moon.

美国国家航空航天局在设计和建造国际空间站 (ISS) 时还必须解决时间问题，国际空间站即将迎来其首件发射 25 周年。国际空间站没有自己的时区。相反，它在协调世界时 (UTC) 上运行，该时间基于原子钟保持的时间。这有助于缩小美国宇航局与加拿大航天局以及俄罗斯、日本和欧洲其他太空合作伙伴之间的时差。 ESA 表示，考虑建立月球时区的国际团队正在讨论是否应该由一个组织在月球上设置和保持时间。

There are also technical questions to consider. For example, clocks run faster on the moon than on Earth, gaining about 56 microseconds each day, officials said. The exact difference depends on the position of the clock and whether it is in orbit or on the lunar surface. One of the most important things to consider is whether separate lunar time will be helpful and effective for the astronauts working there, said ESA official Bernhard Hufenbach. “This will be quite a challenge,” Hufenbach said in a statement. He noted that a day on the moon lasts as long as 29.5 days on Earth. Hufenbach added that after successfully establishing a working time system for the moon, “we can go on to do the same for other planetary destinations.”

还有一些技术问题需要考虑。例如，时钟在月球上的运行速度比在地球上快，每天增加约 56 微秒，官员说。确切的差异取决于时钟的位置以及它是在轨道上还是在月球表面。 ESA 官员伯恩哈德·胡芬巴赫 (Bernhard Hufenbach) 说，要考虑的最重要的事情之一是，单独的月球时间是否对在那里工作的宇航员有帮助和有效。 “这将是一个相当大的挑战，”Hufenbach 在一份声明中说。他指出，月球上的一天与地球上的 29.5 天一样长。 Hufenbach 补充说，在成功建立月球工作时间系统后，“我们可以继续为其他行星目的地做同样的事情。”