NASA has achieved a new speed record in transmitting information from space to Earth. This is achieved with the help of very small satellites and infrared rays.
As recently as last June, this record was 100Gbit/s, but in less than a year, the transmission speed has been doubled, reaching 200Gbit/s. A new record has already been set, but now the next step has been taken in data transfer rates outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
This is an important achievement because NASA still uses radio waves to exchange information with Earth-orbiting objects, similar to cell phone communications. But to enable missions both to the moon and beyond, a new way of sharing information needs to be found, and it looks like it’s going to be laser beams.
The laser communication system stores data using the oscillations of its light waves, encoding the message into an optical signal, which is then sent to a reading device thanks to infrared radiation. It will not be possible to see them with the human eye. The advantage of this technology is that the data transmission speeds can be further increased. Laser couplings are currently the missing piece that will enable future space exploration.
2023-05-18 08:00:00
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