“The laser interactions technology in this demo is designed to send data from deep area at rates 10 to 100 times faster than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by deep space objectives today.After launching on October 13, 2023, the spacecraft stays healthy and stable as it journeys to the main asteroid belt in between Mars and Jupiter to visit the asteroid Psyche.Surpassing ExpectationsNASAs optical communications presentation has revealed that it can transmit test data at a maximum rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) from the flight laser transceivers near-infrared downlink laser– a bit rate similar to broadband internet download speeds.That was attained on December 11, 2023, when the experiment beamed a 15-second ultra-high-definition video to Earth from 19 million miles away (31 million kilometers, or about 80 times the Earth-Moon range). The transceiver consists of a near-infrared laser transmitter to send high-rate information to Earth, and a sensitive photon-counting camera to get ground-transmitted low-rate data. During the April 8 test, the spacecraft sent test data at an optimum rate of 25 Mbps, which far exceeds the projects objective of showing at least 1 Mbps was possible at that distance.The project team also commanded the transceiver to transfer Psyche-generated data optically. While Psyche was sending data over its radio frequency channel to NASAs Deep Space Network (DSN), the optical interactions system at the same time transferred a part of the same data to the Hale Telescope at Caltechs Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California– the tech demonstrations main downlink ground station.”After receiving the information from the DSN and Palomar, we validated the optically downlinked data at JPL,” stated Ken Andrews, project flight operations lead at JPL.
“The laser communications technology in this demo is developed to transmit information from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times faster than the modern radio frequency systems utilized by deep area missions today.After launching on October 13, 2023, the spacecraft stays steady and healthy as it travels to the primary asteroid belt in between Mars and Jupiter to visit the asteroid Psyche.Surpassing ExpectationsNASAs optical communications demonstration has actually shown that it can transmit test data at an optimum rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) from the flight laser transceivers near-infrared downlink laser– a bit rate equivalent to broadband web download speeds.That was achieved on December 11, 2023, when the experiment beamed a 15-second ultra-high-definition video to Earth from 19 million miles away (31 million kilometers, or about 80 times the Earth-Moon range). Throughout the April 8 test, the spacecraft transmitted test information at an optimum rate of 25 Mbps, which far exceeds the tasks goal of showing at least 1 Mbps was possible at that distance.The task team likewise commanded the transceiver to send Psyche-generated information optically. While Psyche was transferring information over its radio frequency channel to NASAs Deep Space Network (DSN), the optical interactions system all at once transferred a part of the very same information to the Hale Telescope at Caltechs Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California– the tech demos primary downlink ground station.
