For what it’s worth, the mercury ion clocks were shipped to the US Naval Observatory. HP shortly thereafter did a market survey and concluded there was not enough profit in it. They did allow Len and Robin to give short-answer support, and the project fell to me. I found the clocks were not performing well due to sudden vacuum-contamination events. Len, Robin, and I published our data in the proceedings of the 1995 Frequency Control Symposium. At about the same time, JPL came up with a second generation design. They kept improving it, and 20 years later this is now the Deep Space Atomic Clock, which was just launched. See https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock
As for costs for an unit that is not space-qualified, I would guess you still need a lab with PhD’s and skilled technicians because I doubt much of the hardware is commercially available.
Demetrios Matsakis, as of this Saturday a USNO retiree, and as of August 1 a consultant for Masterclock.
FWIW, about 20 years ago, Len Cutler and Robin Giffard of 5071A fame
built several Hg ion clocks to be shipped to some govt customer I
don't remember. One of the clocks was dropped by the shipping company
UPS or FedEX) and destroyed. Only then did Len learn that HP was
self insured, probably as part of a package deal to get a low
corporate shipping rate. HP products were packed extremely well, so
the only real risk was the unit getting stolen. I vaguely remember
Len saying they were out $10K, which was probably just the cost of
parts. Nevertheless, it didn't seem like building an Hg clock was
all that big of a project. Way simpler than the 5071A.
Now a days, the electronics would be considerably easier and cheaper.
The mechanical parts would all be CNC'ed by an online machine shop.
Rick N6RK
For what it’s worth, the mercury ion clocks were shipped to the US Naval Observatory. HP shortly thereafter did a market survey and concluded there was not enough profit in it. They did allow Len and Robin to give short-answer support, and the project fell to me. I found the clocks were not performing well due to sudden vacuum-contamination events. Len, Robin, and I published our data in the proceedings of the 1995 Frequency Control Symposium. At about the same time, JPL came up with a second generation design. They kept improving it, and 20 years later this is now the Deep Space Atomic Clock, which was just launched. See https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html> and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock>
As for costs for an unit that is not space-qualified, I would guess you still need a lab with PhD’s and skilled technicians because I doubt much of the hardware is commercially available.
Demetrios Matsakis, as of this Saturday a USNO retiree, and as of August 1 a consultant for Masterclock.
> FWIW, about 20 years ago, Len Cutler and Robin Giffard of 5071A fame
> built several Hg ion clocks to be shipped to some govt customer I
> don't remember. One of the clocks was dropped by the shipping company
> UPS or FedEX) and destroyed. Only then did Len learn that HP was
> self insured, probably as part of a package deal to get a low
> corporate shipping rate. HP products were packed extremely well, so
> the only real risk was the unit getting stolen. I vaguely remember
> Len saying they were out $10K, which was probably just the cost of
> parts. Nevertheless, it didn't seem like building an Hg clock was
> all that big of a project. Way simpler than the 5071A.
> Now a days, the electronics would be considerably easier and cheaper.
> The mechanical parts would all be CNC'ed by an online machine shop.
>
> Rick N6RK
>
