NASA researchers have successfully tested laser communications in space by broadcasting 4K video footage from an aircraft in the sky to the International Space Station and back.
The feat demonstrates that the space agency could provide live coverage of a moon landing during Artemis missions and bodes well for the future. development of optical communications that could connect humans to Mars and beyondNASA normally uses radio waves to send data and communicate between the surface and space, but says laser communications using infrared light can transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than radios.
Engineers equipped a plane with a portable laser terminal, then flew it over Lake Erie and sent data to the center in Cleveland. The data was then transmitted over a ground network to NASA’s test center in New Mexico, where scientists monitored the process of transmitting the data to the agency’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) satellite, 22,000 miles away. The LCRD then relayed it to the ILLUMA-T (Demonstration of integrated laser communication relay, low Earth orbit user modem and amplifier terminal) on the ISS.
Although Artemis missions have been delayedthe fourth, which will return humans to the Moon, is still scheduled for 2028. By then, we could see 4K live streams of astronauts on the Moon broadcast on consumer 8K TVs.
