NASA demonstrated its laser communication tech on December 11 by sending a UHD video of cat named Taters 31 million km, about 80 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
The organisation’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment is the first UHD video transmitted via laser from deep space and demonstrates how high-bandwidth video and other data can be streamed from deep space to Earth. This communication will be vital in enabling future human missions beyond Earth orbit and in the quest to send humans to Mars.
The presentation used a device known as a flight laser transceiver to transmit the 15-second test video of Taters chasing a laser pointer with test graphics overlayed. The transmission of the video signal, performed at the system’s maximum bit rate of 267Mbps, took 101 seconds to reach Earth. The instrument, equipped for sending and receiving near-infrared signals, directed an encoded near-infrared laser towards the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California where the video was downloaded. The individual frames of the continuous video were then sent in real time to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the live playback of the video occurred.
Source: NASA
Top image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech