Earth Receives Laser Communication From 140 Million Miles Away In Deep Space

The asteroid known as Psyche is situated in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. A robotic explorer named Psyche has been designed to explore this asteroid and is also tasked with testing laser communications. Equipped with the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, Psyche aims to enable laser communication across great distances in space, promising faster connections than current methods. While Psyche predominantly uses radio frequency communication, the optical communications technology has demonstrated its capability.

In an impressive demonstration, the laser communications successfully transmitted engineering data from a distance of over 140 million miles, which is 1.5 times the distance between Earth and the sun, after interfacing with Psyche’s radio frequency transmitter. The DSOC also successfully interfaced with Psyche’s radio transmitter, enabling the transmission of information and engineering data directly from the spacecraft back to Earth. Meera Srinivasan, the project’s operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, reported that around 10 minutes of duplicated spacecraft data were downlinked during a pass on April 8. This duplicated data was transmitted via laser communications, while the original Psyche data was sent to ground control using standard radio-frequency communications channels on NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).

The objective was to assess if laser communications proved to be as effective, if not better, than traditional methods. NASA’s optical communications demonstration has successfully proven that it can transmit test data at a maximum rate of 267 Mbps using the flight laser transceiver’s near-infrared downlink laser, akin to broadband internet speeds. Although the spacecraft is now farther away, leading to a lower data transmission rate, during a test on April 8, it managed to transmit test data at a maximum rate of 25 Mbps, surpassing the project’s goal of proving at least 1 Mbps was achievable at that distance. Psyche continues on its journey towards the Psyche 16 asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter, reportedly stable and healthy.