🏆 NASA Tests Record-Breaking Laser Communicator on Psyche Spacecraft 🛰️ [16 million kilometers away which is 40X the distance to the moon]

[Hamartia Antidote]

NASA Tests Record-Breaking Laser Communicator on Psyche Spacecraft

For the first time, NASA has used lasers to transmit data from beyond the moon.

www.extremetech.com

Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

NASA's Psyche spacecraft is en route to an asteroid of the same name, but it won't arrive until 2028. In the meantime, NASA has used Psyche to test a new technology that could change how it communicates with spacecraft. The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment has successfully beamed data to and from Earth with a laser, setting a record for the farthest-ever example of optical communication.

Today, all of NASA's deep space missions remain in contact with Earth via the Deep Space Network, a collection of radio frequency parabolic reflector antennas spread around the globe. DSOC relies on near-infrared lasers to transmit data, which has the potential to transmit much more data than radio signals. That should come as no surprise—fiber optic technology is the super-fast backbone of all terrestrial communication.

Psyche is currently out beyond the Moon's orbit, making this the first time laser communication has been achieved at such great distances. NASA confirmed "first light" for DSOC on Nov. 14 after the on-board flight laser transceiver locked onto an uplink beacon from an Earth ground station at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility. This uplink beam helps the spacecraft align itself to transmit, which is essential as it is already 20 light-minutes away from Earth. Test data was sent simultaneously via uplink and downlink, confirming that DSOC can "close the link," which is the primary goal of the experiment.

Psyche is testing this technology, but it's not relying on an experimental laser system for all communication. Its mission data will arrive back at Earth via the traditional Deep Space Network. "Launching with Psyche is an ideal platform to demonstrate NASA’s optical communications goal to get high-bandwidth data into deep space," said Prasun Desai of the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA.

This is just the beginning of the test. NASA believes laser communication could be vital to future plans to explore Mars with crewed missions. So, DSOC was designed to operate out to the orbit of Mars, and it just so happens that Psyche will perform a Mars flyby during its journey to the asteroid belt. As the spacecraft continues toward the outer solar system, NASA will use what it learned from the first light test to begin demonstrating high-bandwidth transmissions to and from Psyche. NASA believes DSOC could support transmission rates between 10 and 100 times faster than today's best radio frequency systems.