(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – In a recent report, NASA made headlines as it revealed that Earth just received a laser message from a whopping 140 million miles away, which was dispatched by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft.
The laser message is located at a distance approximately 1.5 times farther than Earth’s distance from the Sun, and NASA believes this noteworthy achievement could pave the way for future missions.
The space agency explained:
“This achievement provides a glimpse into how spacecraft could use optical communications in the future, enabling higher-data-rate communications of complex scientific information as well as high-definition imagery and video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.”
NASA’s objective was to showcase the possibility of laser communications across vast interstellar distances.
It promised enhanced bandwidth and considerably faster connections—10 to 100 times speedier than existing options—between people and their spacecraft voyaging through the cosmos.
In addition to transmitting the laser signal across a record-breaking span, NASA effectively beamed actual data from the spacecraft.
The laser message was dispatched to Earth by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications transceiver, which is currently installed onboard the Psyche spacecraft.
This transceiver communicates by dispatching and receiving data through an 8.6-inch aperture telescope.
One expert explained, “We downlinked about 10 minutes of duplicated spacecraft data. Until then, we’d been sending test and diagnostic data in our downlinks from Psyche.”
The experiment started in December 2023, when Psyche hovered roughly 19 million miles from Earth. During the initial test, data zipped across at a speed of 267 megabits per second—akin to high-speed broadband internet.
Now that Psyche is over seven times farther out, data transmission speed has naturally decreased.
In the latest trial, data flowed at a rate of 25 megabits per second.
While this may seem inactive, NASA underscores that it comfortably surpasses the project’s objective of achieving at least one megabit per second at such a distance.
This advancement promises a substantial enhancement in communication for future human and robotic exploration missions. It will also bolster the capabilities of higher-resolution scientific instruments.
Copyright 2024, TheLastPatriotNews.com
