NASA announced Thursday that the agency successfully received data in its farthest demonstration of laser or optical communications to date.
Scientists are using NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) In the experiment, a near-infrared laser encoded with test data was beamed into the Hale Telescope at California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, from a distance of about 10 million miles, about 40 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
This success, known as “first light,” is an important stepping stone toward increasing the amount of data that can be transmitted throughout the solar system.
“Achieving First Light is one of many important DSOC milestones to be achieved in the coming months, and will enable high-speed transmission of scientific information, high-definition images, and streaming video to support humanity’s next great leap forward. “It paves the way for data communications to Mars,” said Trudy Cortez, director of technology demonstrations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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NASA compares upgrades to optical communications to moving from traditional telephone lines to fiber optics, finding that the use of optical communications increases the capacity of the most advanced wireless systems currently used on spacecraft by a factor of 10 to 100. Then he pointed out.
The DSOC experiment is NASA’s first demonstration of optical communications beyond the moon, the agency said. This system consists of an airborne laser transmitter/receiver, a ground laser transmitter, and a ground laser receiver.
The transceiver ran alongside NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which launched on October 13th. The spacecraft’s primary mission is to reach and study asteroid Psyche-16, a metal-rich object in the asteroid belt.
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The spacecraft includes a DSOC, which has completed significant milestones in its first phase. two stage mission.