Passive Hydrogen Maser for Space Applications

Research and development programs on the passive hydrogen maser (PHM) have been undertaken in a number of firms, government agencies, and university laboratories. In the first years of development, the PHM was cumbersome and very difficult to transport. The new generation of PHM, which is comparable in size, weight and power to the commercially available cesium standards exhibit excellent frequency stability and timekeeping ability. The frequency stability of a passive hydrogen maser is essential and exceedingly suitable as a space-based atomic clock. The objective of the proposed Phase I effort is to develop a system design for a Passive Hydrogen Maser and to demonstrate its feasibility through computer models and simulations and hardware demonstrations. BENEFIT: The Passive Hydrogen Maser is an obvious choice directly traceable to existing, spaceflight-worthy clocks while exploiting the unique advantages of a hydrogen maser. This Phase I SBIR effort is intended to produce the baseline design of a Passive Hydrogen Maser (PHM) for space applications with short-term frequency stability performance of 1x10-12 per root tau. This Phase I conceptual design and proof-of-concept program will form the baseline for Phase II program to complete the design, fabrication and testing of a prototype PHM unit with a flicker of <2 x 10 -15.