KOMPAS.com – The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) captured a signal from a spacecraft 10 million miles or around 16 million kilometers from Earth on Tuesday (14/11/2023).
The signal is a laser from NASA’s recently launched Psyche spacecraft and is currently at a distance of more than 40 times the average distance from Earth to the surface of the Moon.
Systems project technology expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, Abi Biswas, said this event was the first test in which NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system succeeded in sending data via laser the furthest distance.
“The system on the ground managed to detect space laser photons from DSOC. And we were also able to transmit some data, which means we can exchange ‘bits of light’ to and from space,” he said, as reported by Space.com.
The NASA Space Agency said this event was able to change spacecraft communications which had previously used radio signals.
The DSOC system is an attempt to use optical communications via lasers so that it can increase data speeds up to 100 times.
NASA’s Psyche mission
In October 2023, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft leaves the Moon to study the most distant asteroid.
The spacecraft carries a laser transceiver that can send and receive laser signals in near-infrared spectroscopy.
On November 14, 2023, the equipment was locked onto a Nasa laser beacon in California.
Quoted from the Independent, NASA said that the “first light” breakthrough was one of a number of experiments they carried out to prove that laser technology could work.
Although DSOC will not actually send scientific data collected by the Psyche spacecraft because it is an experiment, lasers will be used to send bits of test data encoded in laser photons or quantum light particles.
So, what happened next after the laser signal was captured by NASA at a distance of 10 million miles?
Also read: NASA Will Build a House on the Moon in 2040, Made of What Materials?
Marks the next mission
Director of technology demonstrations for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at Nasa Headquarters in Washington, Trudy Kortes, said that the capture of a laser signal from the Psyche spacecraft could mark the success of the next mission to send humans to Mars.
“This is an important milestone for DSOC which in the coming months will be able to pave the way towards higher data speed communications capable of transmitting scientific information, high definition imagery and video streaming to support humanity’s next big leap, namely sending humans to Mars,” said Kortes. still from the same source.
On the other hand, Director of the Advanced Communication and Navigation Technology Division in NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation program, Dr Jason Mitchell, said that the capture of the laser signal from Psyche also marked the opening of the next space mission.
“This enables human exploration of space. More data means more discoveries.” he said, as reported by CBS News.
The team is currently working to perfect the system that ensures the spacecraft directs the laser in the right direction.
When that happens, NASA will try an experiment to show that the spacecraft can sustain high-bandwidth data transfer at different distances from Earth.
Later, the telescope will break down the data into bits that are encoded in photons of light to be sent by the spacecraft to Earth.
The light then arrives at telescopes on Earth and is reassembled into images or other important data.
Meanwhile, the Psyche spacecraft continues to prepare for its main mission, namely turning on the propulsion system and testing the scientific instruments needed to study the asteroid when it arrives in July 2029.
This mission can determine whether the asteroid is the exposed core of a planet-forming block early in the formation of the Solar System.
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2023-11-26 23:30:00
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