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Since 1964, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has been using short pulse lasers to range to artificial satellites equipped with passive retroreflectors. Today, a global network of 40 satellite laser ranging (SLR) stations, under the auspices of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), routinely tracks two dozen international space missions with few-millimeter precision using picosecond pulse lasers in support of Earth science. Lunar laser ranging (LLR) began in 1969, shortly after NASA's Apollo 11 mission placed the first of five retroreflector packages on the Moon. An important LLR data product has been the verification of Einstein's equivalence principle and other tests of general relativity. In 1975, the University of Maryland used a laser ranging system to continuously transfer time between two sets of atomic clocks — one set on the ground and the other in an aircraft — to observe the predicted relativistic effects of gravity and velocity on the clock rates. Two-way asynchronous laser transponders promise to extend these precise ranging and time transfer capabilities beyond the Moon to the planets, as evidenced by two successful experiments carried out in 2005 at distances of 24 and 80 million km respectively.

Recent progress in the domain of time and frequency standards has required some important improvements of existing time transfer links. Several time transfer by laser link (T2L2) projects have been carried out since 1972 with numerous scientific or technological objectives. There are two projects currently under exploitation: T2L2 and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The former is a dedicated two-way time transfer experiment embedded on the satellite Jason-2 allowing for the synchronization of remote clocks with an uncertainty of 100 ps and the latter is a one-way link devoted for ranging a spacecraft orbiting around the Moon. There is also the Laser Time Transfer (LTT) project, exploited until 2012 and designed in the frame of the Chinese navigation constellation. In the context of future space missions for fundamental physics, solar system science or navigation, laser links are of prime importance and many missions based on that technology have been proposed for these purposes.

Since 1964, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has been using short pulse lasers to range to artificial satellites equipped with passive retroreflectors. Today, a global network of 40 satellite laser ranging (SLR) stations, under the auspices of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), routinely tracks two dozen international space missions with few-millimeter precision using picosecond pulse lasers in support of Earth science. Lunar laser ranging (LLR) began in 1969, shortly after NASA's Apollo 11 mission placed the first of five retroreflector packages on the Moon. An important LLR data product has been the verification of Einstein's equivalence principle and other tests of general relativity. In 1975, the University of Maryland used a laser ranging system to continuously transfer time between two sets of atomic clocks — one set on the ground and the other in an aircraft — to observe the predicted relativistic effects of gravity and velocity on the clock rates. Two-way asynchronous laser transponders promise to extend these precise ranging and time transfer capabilities beyond the Moon to the planets, as evidenced by two successful experiments carried out in 2005 at distances of 24 and 80 million km respectively.

Recent progress in the domain of time and frequency standards has required some important improvements of existing time transfer links. Several time transfer by laser link (T2L2) projects have been carried out since 1972 with numerous scientific or technological objectives. There are two projects currently under exploitation: T2L2 and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The former is a dedicated two-way time transfer experiment embedded on the satellite Jason-2 allowing for the synchronization of remote clocks with an uncertainty of 100 ps and the latter is a one-way link devoted for ranging a spacecraft orbiting around the Moon. There is also the Laser Time Transfer (LTT) project, exploited until 2012 and designed in the frame of the Chinese navigation constellation. In the context of future space missions for fundamental physics, solar system science or navigation, laser links are of prime importance and many missions based on that technology have been proposed for these purposes.