[ad_1]
Earth has received a laser transmission from “deep space”, US space agency NASA said. The record-breaking transmission originating from 140 million miles away came from NASA’s 2023 spacecraft “Psyche.”
NASA launched a space mission in October last year to send a spacecraft towards the asteroid ‘Psyche 16’.
‘Psyche 16’ is believed to be composed mainly of metal, which is rare in the Solar System. It is said to be located in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
The spacecraft ‘Psyche’ is named after the asteroid it is attempting to explore. The second mission this robotic explorer is on is to test laser communication between deep space and Earth.
Equipped with Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, ‘Psyche’ aims to make laser communication possible over vast distances in space, promising much faster connections than existing methods.
Although Psyche primarily uses radio frequency communications, its optical communications technology has proven successful in transmitting information and engineering data from the spacecraft directly to Earth.
“This represents an important milestone for the project by demonstrating how optical communications can interface with the spacecraft’s radio frequency comms system,” Meera Srinivasan, project operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. “
NASA downlinked about 10 minutes of duplicate spacecraft data during a pass on April 8, Srinivasan said.
He said the duplicated data was transmitted through laser communication. In contrast, the original Psyche data was sent to ground control using standard radio-frequency communications channels over NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
‘The objective was to assess whether laser communication could perform as effectively, if not better, than traditional methods,’ he said.
NASA’s optical communications demonstration proved that it could transmit test data at a maximum rate of 267 Mbps using the near-infrared downlink laser of the flight laser transceiver, which is similar to broadband Internet speeds.
However, because the spacecraft is now so far away, the data transmission rate is low.
Unlock a world of benefits! From informative newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and personalized newsfeeds – it’s all here, just a click away! log in now!
Catch all business news, market news, breaking news events and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download Mint News app to get daily market updates.
more less
Published: May 02, 2024, 04:15 PM IST
[ad_2]
