In a NASA experiment, Earth was able to successfully receive a laser-beam message from the Psyche spacecraft, situated around 10 million miles away.
Earth Successfully Receives Laser-Beam Message From 10-Million-Mile Distance
On November 14, NASA was able to detect a laser signal that was released by a certain instrument that was deployed with the Psyche craft, which is over 10 million miles away from Earth and is moving towards a metal asteroid.
This particular moment served as the first test success of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system of NASA. This novel system is a next-generation link for communication that transmits information via laser light rather than radio waves. This comes as part of various tests that the agency is conducting in order to boost deep space communications across different missions.
Abi Biswas, who is the project technologist of the system at NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), explains that this is a remarkable achievement, adding that ground systems were able to successfully pick up the deep space laser photons from the DSOC system. Biswas adds that they were also able to release data, which means that light bit exchanges to and from deep space were achieved.
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Improving Deep-Space Communication
While there are other space missions that have tried pulling off laser communications in the orbit of the Earth or to the Moon and back, the novel DSOC system of NASA offers laser communications the most distant and trickiest test to date. If this is seen as a success, officials at NASA are expecting that astronauts in the next few decades could use laser light for communication with the ground.
DSOC tests started at the Table Mountain Facility of JPL in California. As part of the tests procedures, engineers turned on an uplink beacon device, a near-infrared laser, that was directed towards the Psyche. After around 50 seconds, Psyche's transceiver got the laser. It then sent its own laser signal to the Palomar Observatory close to San Diego.
For this to be pulled off, astronomical precision is required. Automated guidance systems also aid with the aiming of the laser of Psyche.
If the tests are successful, great benefits will be gained. Since the wavelengths of laser light are shorter compared to those of radio waves, the utilization of optical light will enable information relays of up to 10 to 100 times more per unit.
Engineers will keep testing the system as the craft moves to its asteroid destination in the asteroid belt situated between Jupiter and Mars. The craft is expected to reach the asteroid in 2029. By then, the craft will start examining an asteroid that scientists believe to be an early planet's building block. This also serves as NASA's first mission to study an asteroid that is more rich in metal rock compared to ice.
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