On December 11, NASA engineers anxiously gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to watch a cat video, wondering if it was the pristine high-resolution they had hoped for. thought.
It was a relief for them. For the first time, high-definition video (this one of a lab employee’s pet cat named Taters) was streamed from him 18.6 million miles away. This is about 80 times the distance from Earth to the Moon, making it the farthest distance yet.
This demonstration was conducted as part of NASA. deep space optical communication The experiment aims to improve the infrastructure for communicating beyond Earth’s orbit. As an example, if humans go to Mars, we will need to transmit large amounts of data over longer distances. This demonstration marked another step towards such a possibility.
“This is the same capability that would be needed if we were to send astronauts to places like the surface of Mars,” said project engineer Dr. Abhijit Biswas. “I want to stay in touch with them.”
The demonstration was carried out in cooperation with NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which was launched on October 13 to explore the asteroid of the same name. The DSOC experiment seeks to use laser communications, rather than traditional radio frequencies, to transfer large amounts of data faster and over longer distances. (The video shows Taters chasing his laser pointer.) In 1928, a statue of the cartoon character Felix the Cat was used for testing. TV broadcast. )
Transmitted data rates of 267 Mbit/s are often comparable to terrestrial speeds of 100 to 300 Mbit/s. However, Dr Biswas urged caution regarding the results of the experiment.
“This is the first step,” he said. “There are still significant requirements to turn something like a proof of concept into something operational and reliable, such as ground infrastructure.”
The video is flight laser transceiver, one of several new hardware being deployed for the first time. The DSOC system consists of a transceiver aboard the Psyche spacecraft and its two components on Earth: a ground laser transmitter (approximately a 90-minute drive from the laboratory) and a ground laser receiver on Earth. It consists of two parts. Palomar Observatory in Southern California.
“It’s kind of amazing that we’re finally able to do so much,” said Dr. Meera Srinivasan, the project’s director of operations.
Dr. Biswas and Dr. Srinivasan, along with other NASA engineers, have been working on this technology for decades. The focus was on scaling up optical communications technology already used on satellites orbiting much closer to Earth. Initially, before the Psyche mission, the team encountered a roadblock as the signal was too weak. So NASA developed technology to expand its capabilities. Dr Biswas said deep space was a “new frontier”.
To begin the cat video process, a ground transmitter first sent out a laser beam. The goal had to be precise. Psyche then locked onto that signal and sent the content, which had been preloaded by the NASA team, back to the receiver. For the transmission to work, it had to be done on a cloudless night with adequate visibility.
“There are a lot of small steps,” Dr. Biswas says. “Each one has to fall into place at the right time. And it’s scary because it’s the first time we’re doing it. This has never been done before. ‘Oh! It’s not like, “If I do this, I know this will happen.” We are just trying to get through all of this. ”
He added: “And when everything goes well, it seems so easy. Why were we worried in the first place?”
Currently, the DSOC project is testing its limits. NASA engineers predict that by the end of June he will be able to transmit from a distance of 186 million miles, 10 times as long.