US space agency NASA researchers have successfully tested laser communications in space, whereby 4K video footage has been transmitted from an aircraft in the sky to the International Space Station and back.
The feat suggests the space agency could provide live coverage of the moon landings during the Artemis mission and bodes well for the development of optical communications that could connect humans to Mars and beyond.
NASA typically uses radio waves to send and communicate data from the surface to space, but the agency says laser communications using infrared light can transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than radio. can
Engineers installed a portable laser terminal on a plane and flew it over Lake Erie and sent data to a center in Cleveland. The data was then sent via a terrestrial network to NASA’s Mayo-Mexico facility, where scientists relayed it to the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) 22,000 miles away.
The message from the LCRD was sent to ILLUMA-T on the International Space Station.
