Posted by Ashley Strickland, CNN
Using invisible lasers in space may sound like science fiction, but it’s real.
NASA’s Laser Communications Relay demonstration could revolutionize the way the agency communicates with future missions across the solar system.
These lasers could lead to more high-resolution videos and photos from space than ever before, according to the agency.
The mission launched Tuesday at 5:19 p.m. ET as a payload aboard the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program Satellite 6 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch was postponed to Sunday after a leak was discovered in the Rocket Propellant-1 soil storage system. This was fixed before the launch on Tuesday.
NASA has been using radio waves since 1958 to communicate with its astronauts and space missions. While radio waves have a proven track record, space missions are becoming more complex and collecting more data than before.
Think of infrared lasers as the optical communications version of high-speed Internet as opposed to the frustratingly slow dial-up Internet. Laser communication will send data to Earth from orbit in sync with the Earth’s rotation, 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface at 1.2 gigabits per second, which is like downloading an entire movie in less than a minute.
This makes data transfer rates 10 to 100 times faster than radio waves. Infrared lasers, which are invisible to our eyes, have shorter wavelengths than radio waves, so they can transmit more data at once.
With the current radio wave system, it would take nine weeks to send back a full map of Mars – but lasers could do this in nine days.
The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration is NASA’s first end-to-end laser relay system to send and receive data from space at two optical ground stations in Table Mountain, California and Haleakalā, Hawaii. These stations have telescopes that can receive the light from the lasers and convert it into digital data. In contrast to radio antennas, laser communication receivers can be up to 44 times smaller. Since the satellite can both send and receive data, it is a true two-way system.
The only glitch with these ground based laser receivers are atmospheric disturbances such as clouds and turbulence that can disrupt laser signals traveling through our atmosphere. The remote locations for the two receivers were chosen with this in mind, as both typically have clear weather conditions at high altitudes.
Once the mission is in orbit, the Las Cruces, New Mexico Operations Center team will activate and prepare the laser communication relay demonstration to send tests to the ground stations.
The mission is expected to conduct tests and experiments for two years before supporting space missions, including an optical terminal that will be installed on the International Space Station in the future. It will be able to send data from scientific experiments on the space station to the satellite, which will send it back to Earth.
The demonstration acts as a relay satellite, eliminating the need for antennas with a direct line of sight to earth for future missions. The satellite could help reduce the size, weight, and energy requirements for communications on future spacecraft – although this mission is roughly the size of a king’s mattress.
This means that future missions could be started more cheaply and would leave room for more scientific instruments.
Other missions currently under development that could test laser communication skills include the Orion Artemis II optical communication system, which will enable ultra-high definition video transmission between NASA and Artemis astronauts venturing to the moon.
And the Psyche mission, which starts in 2022, will reach its asteroid target in 2026. The mission will examine a metallic asteroid spanning over 150 million kilometers. away and test his deep space optical communication laser to send data back to earth.
The CNN Wire
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