NASA will test laser communication to speed up data transmission in space

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Forward-looking: The US space agency will soon send a new, experimental laser communication technology into space that is expected to show potential data transmission rates that are 10 to 100 times the speed of current state-of-the-art radio systems. The device is installed aboard the Psyche spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than October 5, 2023.

While Psyche travels toward the metal-rich asteroid with the same name, NASA will study the feasibility of laser-based digital communication in outer space. The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) project is designed to test how lasers could be employed to greatly speed up data transmission, the agency says, achieving transfer speeds that are "far beyond" the capacity of current radio frequency systems.

DSOC uses a near-infrared laser transceiver, which can send and receive more information than radio wave devices. According to Abi Biswas, DSOC's project technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the novel transceiver was designed to demonstrate transmission rates with 10 to 100 times the "data-return capacity" of state-of-the-art radio systems used today for space comms. High-bandwidth laser communications for near-Earth orbit and Moon-orbiting satellites have already been proven, Biswas says, but outer space is a completely different matter.

The DSOC experiment is equipped with several components, including a "photon-counting" camera attached to a 22-cm aperture telescope. The transceiver is autonomously "locked" to a high-power, near-infrared laser uplink sent by the Optical Communication Telescope Laboratory at JPL's Table Mountain Facility, in California. This laser signal will be used to send commands to the DSOC.

After receiving its commands, the transceiver aboard Psyche will locate the 5.1-m Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory, using its near-infrared laser to transmit "high-rate data" back to Earth. A state-of-the-art vibration dampener will make sure that the transceiver won't falter during the data transmission phase.

According to Bill Klipstein, DSOC project manager at JPL, the project has been a complex endeavor that required many new, custom-made technologies. The team was even forced to develop its own signal-processing techniques to squeeze every single bit they could out of weak electromagnetic signals transmitted over gargantuan distances in space.

And yet, the increasingly common deep space exploration missions managed by NASA and other space agencies promise to generate "exponentially more data" than past, radio-based missions. Experiments like DSOC will hopefully play a crucial role in developing new, advanced communication systems that can be used "routinely" in the future to send commands and receive scientific data, images, or even videos of the cosmos.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99752-nasa-test-dsoc-lasers-speed-up-data-transmission.html

 

[Trapped Nowhere]

Space lasers

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Space lasers

Yay :-D

 

[VitalyT]

is expected to show potential data transmission rates that are 10 to 100 times the speed of current state-of-the-art radio systems

In case it is not obvious to some, the speed will be identical, it is the data density that's increasing, that's far easier to package into a light beam than a radio frequency. The tricky part - 180 million km through variety of space garbage that will hinder the signal and yield a lot of data loss, unlike with radio signals that travels unimpeded. Looking forward to seeing it actually work...

 

[wiyosaya]

In case it is not obvious to some, the speed will be identical, it is the data density that's increasing, that's far easier to package into a light beam than a radio frequency. The tricky part - 180 million km through variety of space garbage that will hinder the signal and yield a lot of data loss, unlike with radio signals that travels unimpeded. Looking forward to seeing it actually work...

Radio signals could easily be blocked by junk in space. IMO, there is really no difference from that standpoint. Seems to me the tricky part will be pointing accuracy on either end since lasers tend to have narrow beams that do not diverge much. Also, the Earth's atmosphere might tend to impede signals in either direction.

However, it sounds like an interesting experiment.

 

[VitalyT]

Only large space bodies can impede radio signal propagation, small garbage just doesn't, that's a big difference IMO.

Such a system would have to be like nothing ever before. Not only it will have to be fully dynamic, constantly self-recalibrating, but it would also have to account for sun's gravity, which does distort light direction slightly, which at 180 million km away will be significant enough, and that also changes as does the distance from sun for both sender and receiver.

In other words, self-calibration will require a fairly complex dynamic 7D model: Gravity in 3D, projected on 3D Space, projected in time. It is hard to fathom, my brain would hurt.

 

[B5S46M]

NIR is still a radio wave, just a wavelength in the almost visible part of the spectrum. Calling it a LASER doesn't really add anything, unless traditional signals use a band of frequencies and this is more of a monochromator. That part was not explained.

 

[Mark Fuller]

In case it is not obvious to some, the speed will be identical, it is the data density that's increasing, that's far easier to package into a light beam than a radio frequency. The tricky part - 180 million km through variety of space garbage that will hinder the signal and yield a lot of data loss, unlike with radio signals that travels unimpeded. Looking forward to seeing it actually work...

Just think of the net gain in fiberoptic transmissions over wired and wireless radio signals, unless I miss my guess, it could be about the same because the same principles apply. Wired transmissions have the resistance of the metal wire to electron flow, in wireless transmissions the eletronic signals must travel through the atmosphere which slows it down even more than a wired signal. Granted a laser signal would travel thought the atmosphere, but light signals that travel through the invisible atmosphere have the same characteristics as the light signals that travel through a fiber optic cable. As far as the hindrance of signals are concerned, have you never heard of the smoke and mirrors effect of both light and radio waves? In the vastness of space and the atmosphere of earth, anything that would produce a hindrance would be negligeable. Also, as far as hindrance is concerned light has different wavelengths with different characteristics. Remember, even an x-ray will see through human flesh to reveal a broken bone. And I worked for Directv at one time and the conditions that led to a signal blockage only happened about at the most 4 days during any given year, and that would be during the heaviest thunderstorms. I can't see that there would be any kind of a hindrance problem. IMO this is the best idea I have heard of in a long time.

"And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe
But It's all around if we could but perceive"
Mike Pindar, The Moody Blues

 

[mosu]

It's all about secrecy, point to point transmission.No data leaks and you will know when the beam is intercepted.

 

[Mark Fuller]

It's all about secrecy, point to point transmission.No data leaks and you will know when the beam is intercepted.

Unfortunately, in any kind of wireless transmission, you have that problem.

 

[Endymio]

NIR is still a radio wave, just a wavelength in the almost visible part of the spectrum. Calling it a LASER doesn't really add anything,

Infrared (and especially NIR) is not part of the radio spectrum. And there between laser-based and non-coherent transmission. Using a simple (non-laser) NIR signal would require several orders of magnitude more signal power.

 

[B5S46M]

Infrared (and especially NIR) is not part of the radio spectrum.

All light waves including IR are part of the radio spectrum. Just not what you would call AM/FM etc.

Near-Infrared (NIR) Light Sources for 3D Facial Recognition

Near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths are used frequently for three-dimensional (3D) sensing in a number of applications, including 3D facial recognition.

www.azooptics.com

 

[Endymio]

All light waves including IR are part of the radio spectrum. Just not what you would call AM/FM etc.

Near-Infrared (NIR) Light Sources for 3D Facial Recognition

Near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths are used frequently for three-dimensional (3D) sensing in a number of applications, including 3D facial recognition.

www.azooptics.com

You've misread your own link. It clearly differentiates the RF portion of the electromagnetic spectrum from microwaves, infrared, visible light, and other portions.