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Earth receives first laser beam message from deep space

Nasa's deep space optical communications tool has beamed a near-infrared laser encoded with test data from nearly 16 million kilometres away

 Nasa has successfully received data from a record-breaking distance using laser communications.
Nasa has successfully received data from a record-breaking distance using laser communications. (Pexels)

In an exciting achievement, US space agency Nasa has successfully received data from a record-breaking distance using laser or optical communications. Nasa also has revealed that this is the farthest-ever demonstration of optical communications.

This test was part of Nasa’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment which has beamed a near-infrared laser encoded with test data from nearly 16 million kilometres away – about 40 times farther than the Moon is from Earth – to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, Nasa explained in a statement. This successful establishment of the communications link is known as 'first light'.

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In October, Nasa launched the Psyche spacecraft to study the main asteroid-rich belt between Mars and Jupiter. The DCOC tool was attached to this spacecraft and managed by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The beam was received on 14 November and it took 50 seconds for the laser message from the Psyche mission to reach Earth.

“Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars,” Nasa’s Trudy Kortes, director of Technology Demonstrations for the Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in the statement.

The DSOC experiment aims to demonstrate data transmission rates 10 to 100 times greater than the radio frequency systems used by spacecraft today, Nasa explains in the statement. 

Both radio and near-infrared laser communications use electromagnetic waves to transmit data, but near-infrared light inserts the data into significantly tighter waves, which makes it possible for ground stations to receive more data. “This will help future human and robotic exploration missions and support higher-resolution science instruments,” the space agency said.

The Psyche mission is scheduled for a fly-by around Mars, and so tests will continue to improve this near-infrared laser communication method, a Science Alert report said.

“It was a formidable challenge, and we have a lot more work to do, but for a short time, we were able to transmit, receive, and decode some data,” Meera Srinivasan, operations lead for DSOC at JPL, said in the statement.

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