NASA’s DSOC sent video using a laser to Earth from a distance of 31 million kilometers
Following successful testing of DSOC technology in Earth orbit and on the Moon, NASA is now using deep space optical communications technologies to test laser communications over increasingly greater distances. While aboard the agency’s Psyche mission, DSOC has already sent video via laser to Earth from 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away and is aiming to prove that high-throughput data can be sent even from Mars.
NASA demonstrates optical communications for deep space operations
DSOC, an experiment that could change the way spacecraft communicate, has sent data using a laser to and from the Moon for the first time. The transmitted data takes the form of bits (the smallest units of data that a computer can process) encoded in laser photons—quantum particles of light.