How this for long distance calls?
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration successfully beamed a laser from the vast expanse of space to Southern California in a historic event last week.
It is also a big step towards sending astronauts to Mars.
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) launches an infrared laser — encoded with data for testing — 10 million miles away from Earth in about 50 seconds.
The photons were emitted from NASA’s unmanned Psyche spacecraft, which launched in October and is on a larger mission to explore a metal-filled comet between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt in 2028.
The discovery — which was sent to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego — is the farthest demonstration of optical communication ever, according to NASA.
To put it in perspective, the moon is only 238,900 miles from our pale blue dot.
Sorry, Earthlings — ETs aren’t actually calling us. NY Post illustration A historic laser beam from 10 million miles away has been blasted from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft.NASA / Ben Smegelsky
It achieved what space experts dubbed “first light” early on November 14 when a high-tech laser transceiver was successfully locked onto another NASA facility in the Golden State. After hooking up with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory facility outside of LA, the laser was then able to finely focus its path south to San Diego.
The successful laser blast is an important step in getting closer to personal space exploration, according to NASA’s Director of Technology Demonstrations, Trudy Kortes.
“Reaching first light is one of DSOC’s many milestones in the coming months, paving the way for higher data-rate communications capable of transmitting scientific information, high-definition imagery and streaming video to support humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.”
It follows the success of the Mars Perseverance rover which turned the planet’s unbreathable air into oxygen.
Researchers also believe they have discovered the key building blocks for life on the terrestrial world.
Another important element is that the test data is sent to Earth and received in space through a process called uplinking – lasers sent from the DSOC telescope laboratory – and downlinking down to the Palomar observatory. The process of sending the signal back to Earth from the satellite takes about 20 minutes.
“It’s a formidable challenge, and we have a lot more work to do, but for a short time, we were able to send, receive and decode some data,” said DSOC chief of operations Meera Srinivasan.
Successful laser demonstration has positive implications for Mars exploration.NASA / JPL-Caltech
The ultimate goal is to transmit 100 times more data than the highly sophisticated radio frequency system used in the test. Once achieved, NASA will not only be able to assist human and robotic missions but also send higher resolution instruments into deep space for study.
“Optical communications are a boon for scientists and researchers who always want more from their space missions, and will enable humans to explore deep space,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell, director of NASA’s Advanced Navigation and Communications Technologies Division.
“More data means more discoveries.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
