NASA has just combined all my favorite things: space, lasers, and cats. In a first-of-its-kind demonstration of optical communications in deep space, the space agency broadcast high-definition video from 19 million miles from Earth. As it turns out, NASA is just as obsessed as the rest of us when it comes to sharing cat videos.
On December 11, a gold-covered laser transceiver mounted on NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe broadcast a 15-second video of an orange cat named Taters chasing a laser pointer up and down a sofa, the space agency said. open this week. A cat live broadcast has broken the record for the longest distance covered by data-encoded laser beams – 80 times the distance between Earth and the Moon – as NASA prepares to upgrade its communications skills for deep space missions.
The star of the video is actually the pet of a NASA employee. Taters’ footage is overlaid with graphics illustrating several features from the technology demonstration, such as Psyche’s orbital path, and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate. It also displays more information about Taters, including heart rate, color, and breed.
Not only was the video so amazing I might die, but it also demonstrated NASA’s ability to transmit laser-encoded data from farther into deep space. We can’t think of a better video example to serve as the first high-definition stream transmitted via a laser from deep space.
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment was launched aboard the spacecraft The Psyche spacecraft on October 13 As the first demonstration of laser or optical communications from places as far away as Mars. In November, The gadget saw its first light The encrypted data is transmitted inside a near-infrared laser from about 10 million miles from Earth.
In its latest demonstration, the laser transceiver transmitted an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope in San Diego County, California, at a maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second. The video took 101 seconds to reach Earth, and each frame of the loop video was broadcast live to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, where footage of Taters’ laser-chasing adventures was played in real time.
“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send video faster than most broadband Internet connections,” Ryan Rogalin, the project’s receiving electronics lead at JPL, said in a statement. “In fact, after the video was received at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the Internet, and this communication was slower than the signal coming from deep space.”
Optical communications systems synthesize data into oscillations of light waves into laser beams, encoding the message into an optical signal that is transmitted to a receiver through infrared rays that the human eye cannot see. Although lasers are used for… Data transmission from Earth orbit And the moon, the last test represents the furthest distance covered by laser beams. “JPL’s Design Lab did a great job helping us demonstrate this technology. Everyone loves Taters,” Rogalin added.
NASA typically uses radio waves to communicate with its extralunar missions, but near-infrared light packs data into more compact waves, allowing more data to be sent and received. The DSOC experiment aims to demonstrate data transfer rates 10 to 100 times greater than current radio frequency systems used by spacecraft today, according to NASA. Optical communications become more difficult over longer distances because they require extreme precision to aim the laser beam.
“When we got to first light, we were excited, but also cautious. It’s a new technology, and we’re experimenting with how it works,” Ken Andrews, project flight operations leader at JPL, said in a statement. “But now, with the help of our colleagues at Psyche, , we are used to working with the system and we can hold on to spacecraft and ground stations longer than we could before. We learn something new during every push.”
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The primary purpose of the Psyche spacecraft is to explore and study the uniquely metallic asteroid Psyche, providing insight into the planet’s formation history and core dynamics. The farther Psyche travels on its way to its asteroid target, the fainter the laser photon signal becomes. Although the task has become more challenging, the team behind the experience is still keen to have fun with it.
“One goal is to demonstrate the ability to transmit large-scale video over millions of miles. Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we typically send packets of generated test data,” Bill Klippstein, technology demonstration project manager at JPL, said in a statement. Randomly.” “But to make this milestone even more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demonstration as part of the Psyche mission.”
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