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NASA shoots lasers at the moon, sets new data transmission record
Lasers are indisputably awesome, and NASA just made them a little more so by zapping a record-breaking 622 Mb of data per second between the moon and earth as a part of its Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD). Pulsed laser beams were shot from ground control at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico to the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) satellite orbiting the moon, and the results could herald promising new advances in deep space communication. Radio waves have long been the go-to option for sending information between spacecraft and our planet, but the greater data capacity lasers can accommodate may make it possible for future missions to send higher resolution images and 3D video transmissions across two-way channels. To learn more, take a peek at the press release after the break or head over to the official LLCD site at the source link below.
Cover your eyes: NASA, ESA set to bring broadband speeds to space using lasers
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will soon bring a much-needed data link speed increase between satellites, spacecraft and Earth using laser beams, according to Nature. ESA will get the ball rolling on July 25th when it launches the Alphasat, which will communicate at 300 Mbps with the German Tandem-X satellite over an experimental optical communication terminal. NASA's LADEE Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (which launches September 5th) will take a different tack, however. That mission will communicate directly with the Earth all the way from the moon's orbit, thanks to an atmosphere-penetrating AM-style modulated infrared laser beam and eight ground telescopes. The use of lasers helps both missions avoid radio interference in space and on earth, while bringing six times greater speed from the moon than a radio-based system. Just to be on the safe side, though, NASA does have a backup radio link for LADEE -- as good as lasers are, they can't cut through a solid cloud layer.
