NASA fires communication laser 10 million miles in breakthrough for space travel

21 November 2023 , 12:57

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Illustration of the DSOC flight laser transceiver communicating with the ground systems (Image: JPL/NASA/SWNS)

Scientists have fired a communication laser 10 million miles for the first time.

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment is set to transform how spaceships communicate after the unprecedented success of sending data via laser to and from far beyond the Moon.

The test data was beamed about 40 times farther than the Moon is from Earth, from the Pysche spacecraft to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California.

NASA say this is the farthest-ever demonstration of optical communications. The DSOC experiment aims to demonstrate data transmission rates 10 to 100 times greater than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by spacecraft today.

The system is configured to send high-bandwidth test data to Earth during its two-year technology demonstration as Psyche travels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

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Illustration of the DSOC flight laser transceiver and the higher rate of data transmission via laser compared with radio communications (JPL/NASA/SWNS)

The tech demo achieved “first light” in the early hours of 14 November, after its flight laser transceiver – a cutting-edge instrument aboard Psyche capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals – locked onto a powerful uplink laser beacon transmitted from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California.

The uplink beacon helped the transceiver aim its downlink laser back to Palomar (which is 100 miles, or 130 kilometres, south of Table Mountain) while automated systems on the transceiver and ground stations fine-tuned its pointing.

An identical copy of the Deep Space Optical Communications, or DSOC, superconducting nanowire single-photon detector that is coupled to the 200-inch (5.1-meter) Hale Telescope located at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWNS)

“Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars,” said Trudy Kortes, director of Technology Demonstrations at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Test data was also sent simultaneously via the uplink and downlink lasers, a procedure known as “closing the link” which is a primary objective of the experiment.

While the technology demonstration isn’t transmitting Psyche mission data, it works closely with the Psyche mission-support team to ensure DSOC operations don’t interfere with those of the spacecraft.

Illustration of location of the DSOC flight laser on the Psyche spacecraft (JPL/NASA/SWNS)

“Tuesday morning’s test was the first to fully incorporate the ground assets and flight transceiver, requiring the DSOC and Psyche operations teams to work in tandem,” said Meera Srinivasan, operations lead for DSOC at JPL. “It was a formidable challenge, and we have a lot more work to do, but for a short time, we were able to transmit, receive, and decode some data.”

Before this achievement, NASA say the project needed to check the boxes on several other milestones, from removing the protective cover for the flight laser transceiver to powering up the instrument.

Meanwhile, the Psyche spacecraft is carrying out its own checkouts, including powering up its propulsion systems and testing instruments that will be used to study the asteroid Psyche when it arrives there in 2028.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is shown at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center (NASA/Frank Michaux/SWNS)

With a successful first light, the DSOC team will now work on refining the systems that control the pointing of the downlink laser aboard the transceiver. Once achieved, the project can begin its demonstration of maintaining high-bandwidth data transmission from the transceiver to Palomar at various distances from Earth.

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This data takes the form of bits (the smallest units of data a computer can process) encoded in the laser’s photons – quantum particles of light. After a special superconducting high-efficiency detector array detects the photons, new signal-processing techniques are used to extract the data from the single photons that arrive at the Hale Telescope.

Both radio and near-infrared laser communications utilise electromagnetic waves to transmit data, but near-infrared light packs the data into significantly tighter waves, enabling ground stations to receive more data. This will help future human and robotic exploration missions and support higher-resolution science instruments.

Illustration of Psyche spacecraft (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/SWNS)

“Optical communication is a boon for scientists and researchers who always want more from their space missions, and will enable human exploration of deep space,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell, director of the Advanced Communications and Navigation Technologies Division within NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. “More data means more discoveries.”

While optical communication has been demonstrated in low Earth orbit and out to the Moon, DSOC is the first test in deep space. Like using a laser pointer to track a moving dime from a mile away, aiming a laser beam over millions of miles requires extremely precise “pointing.”

The demonstration also needs to compensate for the time it takes for light to travel from the spacecraft to Earth over vast distances: At Psyche’s farthest distance from our planet, DSOC’s near-infrared photons will take about 20 minutes to travel back (they took about 50 seconds to travel from Psyche to Earth during the 14 November test).

In that time, both spacecraft and planet will have moved, so the uplink and downlink lasers need to adjust for the change in location.

“Achieving first light is a tremendous achievement. The ground systems successfully detected the deep space laser photons from DSOC’s flight transceiver aboard Psyche,” said Abi Biswas, project technologist for DSOC at JPL. “And we were also able to send some data, meaning we were able to exchange ‘bits of light’ from and to deep space.”

Dean Murray