How NASA uses gravity and radio waves to study planets and moons
NASA has successfully beamed a message over 10 million miles in the most distant demonstration of laser communications.
The technology will one day allow NASA to beam back discoveries from deeper into space and help uncover the secrets of the universe.
Launched in mid-October, the space agency’s Psyche is currently en route to catch humanity’s first glimpse of a metal asteroid between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The spacecraft will then be sent over 2,2 billion miles into space to reach its new home in the outer part of the main asteroid base.
On board is the Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration, or DSOC.
It promises to be NASA’s high-bandwidth laser communication to beam back communications to Earth using an invisible near-infrared laser.
The laser can send data at 10 to 100 times the speed of traditional radio wave systems NASA uses on other missions.
This could one day be used by humans on Mars to communicate back with Earth.
NASA says it has achieved what is called “first light” – a successful communication from nearly 10 million miles away.
It was received by the Hale Telescope at the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory in Pasadena, California.
Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA, said: “Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.”
The DSOC team will be monitoring how long it takes for the laser messages to travel across space.
During first light, it took only 50 seconds for the laser to travel from Psyche to Earth. At the farthest distance between the spacecraft and Earth, the laser is expected to take 20 minutes to travel one way.
- Support fearless journalism
- Read The Daily Express online, advert free
- Get super-fast page loading
Source: Read Full Article