Recently, NASA’s interplanetary automatic station Psyche established laser communication with a ground control center. This happened at a distance of 16 million km, or about 40 times further than the Moon is from the Earth. For radio communications this is child’s play, but for an optical channel everything is very, very complicated. But the laser will significantly increase the data transmission density, which is important for the transmission of scientific information.
Laser communication unit on board Psyche. Image source: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
Laser communication itself is not something new, even in space. Now, for example, NASA is conducting a series of experiments to deploy a working 1.2-Gbit/s laser communication channel with the ISS. Another thing is laser communication with deep space. “Just as you could use a laser pointer to track a moving dime from a mile away, aiming a laser beam over millions of miles requires extremely precise ‘targeting’.” — the agency commented on the establishment of the first optical communication session with Psyche.
The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) module was installed on the Psyche station as part of a side experiment in the main mission of the device to study the embryo of the planet of the same name. No scientific data will be transmitted over the DSOC near-infrared optical link. The goal of the project is to prove the possibility of transmitting data with a laser beam over long distances. In particular, the equipment on Psyche should hit a distance of up to 390 million km, which is about twice as far as from the Earth to the Sun. Transmission speeds of up to 264 Mbit/s are expected from the laser channel.
During the first laser communication session on November 14, Psyche’s onboard optics picked up a beacon signal from the NASA site on Table Mountain near Wrightwood (California). The beacon helped the station’s transceiver point its laser at an object located about 130 km south of Table Mountain. The fine tuning was done by automatic systems. The station was able to transmit a short message and receive another from Earth. We are not talking about establishing a reliable communication channel yet – that’s all ahead.
If laser communication becomes a reality, it will increase data transfer rates by an order of magnitude or two. The complexity of scientific equipment on space probes is growing every year and radio channels can no longer cope with transmitting all the collected information, and on-board storage facilities are not made of rubber. In the end, society needs beautiful “photos” from reconnaissance sites, and these are gigabytes of visual information alone.
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