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Who sets the next timing standard? Schedule 30 Minute Briefing Optical clocks and lattice-scale spacetime measurements are moving from lab to orbit. Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) explores how we can turn those capabilities into a timing reference layer that helps keep United States and allied forces coordinated when satellite timing links are denied or degraded. Download ASDI overview Field Operative • ASDI

What is ASDI?

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept
development effort. We focus on space based spacetime metrology architectures that treat high
precision spacetime measurements as a primary data product rather than a byproduct of navigation.

Our goal is to work with government sponsors, laboratories, and vendors to shape and de risk space based spacetime metrology architectures that use currently feasible instruments and deliver high precision spacetime measurements as a primary data product. We focus on how these architectures improve accuracy, timing precision, and Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) resilience across a portfolio of missions rather than in a single isolated experiment or platform.
Our research scope stays within experimentally accessible regimes. When we talk about “lattice scale” spacetime, we mean practical sampling of the spacetime metric using networks of high performance clocks and sensors, not Planck scale resolution or exotic faster than light effects. We assume our architectures must respect real hardware and physics limits as they exist today, then explore what becomes possible as those limits improve.
Measurement first
We start with what we can actually measure and test about spacetime itself, not only about objects moving through it. If we can network space based optical lattice clocks and quantum sensors, we can begin to treat spacetime itself as a reference layer for timing and navigation rather than relying only on traditional signal paths.
Primary data layer
ASDI treats lattice scale spacetime measurements as a foundational data layer, similar to how Global Positioning System (GPS) timing underlies navigation, finance, and communications. Once that data layer is defined, we can ask which missions and services benefit most from it and how to allocate risk across them.
Layered services on top
Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), sensing, and physics insights are framed as derived services built on that data, making architectures more modular, testable, and resilient. This separation lets sponsors upgrade instruments, platforms, or analytic methods without having to redesign the entire system each time technology advances

Why ASDI is timely

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept development effort focused on how space based spacetime metrology can improve mission resilience and decision making. It is timely for three reasons.
Fragile PNT infrastructure
Critical infrastructure and operations still depend heavily on a relatively small number of space assets and vulnerable signals for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). Small disturbances, whether accidental or intentional, can have outsized effects
Degraded and denied environments
Future conflicts and crises assume high quality Global Positioning System (GPS) and other satellite navigation signals will not always be available. We treat degraded and denied environments as the baseline case rather than an edge case.
New measurement tools
Advances in optical clocks, cold atom systems, and quantum sensing are moving from laboratories into orbit and fielded platforms. These tools make new classes of measurement architectures realistic for the first time, and we help sponsors explore what those architectures might look like under real constraints.

Impact focus areas

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept development effort. Our work is focused on four overlapping areas.
Resilient PNT
Concepts for navigation and timing that remain useful when Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are unavailable or untrusted. We explore how spacetime measurements can become a primary reference rather than a derivative product, strengthening Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) resilience.
ISR and sensing
Exploring how lattice scale spacetime measurements might sharpen or complement existing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and sensing modalities, without assuming that any single sensor type will dominate
Physics constraints
Using operationally motivated architectures as a way to test, constrain, or refine models of spacetime behavior, always within what can be measured and compared against data.
Systems and risk
Providing portfolio and risk perspectives on how these architectures fit into real programs with budgets, adversaries, export controls, and political constraints. We help sponsors coordinate work across vendors, laboratories, and agencies so technical advances reinforce one another.

Collaboration models

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept development effort. We work as an independent partner alongside government sponsors, vendors, and researchers. Collaboration usually follows three steps.
Step_01
Focused briefing (30 minutes)
A closed group session for program managers, technical leads, and analysts. We share a high level, classification aware overview of the open literature and candidate architectures, tailored to your mission set, and agree on the main questions to explore.
Step_02
Exploratory concept sprint
A short, fixed time effort to explore one or two architectures in more detail, including spacetime metrology options, Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) resilience, and realistic adversary and budget constraints
Step_03
Co authored proposals and studies
Where appropriate, we help shape and write research studies, concept material, and risk framing for priority calls and internal initiatives. Our focus is on helping sponsors, laboratories, and vendors coordinate their work, not on promoting any single product or institution.
"Initial ASDI collaboration slots are intentionally limited to a small number of serious partners."

How we think about risk

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept development effort.

Evidence first
We design around what can be measured, tested, and potentially falsified, not around buzzwords.
Adversary aware
We assume intelligent, adaptive adversaries who read the same open literature, and sometimes more.
Epistemic humility
Public material is deliberately conservative. Anything that would clearly require classified treatment does not appear here.
Even with the best clocks and sensors, if the architecture and risk framing are wrong, you still lose.

Frequently asked questions

Advanced Spacetime Dynamics Integration (ASDI) is an early stage research and concept development effort. 

01_Is ASDI an operational system or a research program?

ASDI is an early stage research and concept development effort, not a deployed system.

High level architectures, risk framing, and open literature are on the table. Anything that would clearly require classified handling is kept out of public channels and handled through the usual processes.

We are conservative. If there is any doubt about export controls or ITAR, we treat the material as if it were controlled and route it through the proper channels.

Yes, subject to the usual clearances and program rules, but initial contact starts at this open level.

For ASDI we are primarily interested in funded research, studies, and joint proposals that keep the work within appropriate legal and security boundaries.

Let's Talk

    Schedule an ASDI briefing or send a note

    Use the form or choose a time directly. We typically respond within two business days.

    Email:

    buck.field@fieldoperative.com

    Schedule 30 Minute Briefing