226 million kilometers in space

• The Psyche probe sends out a mixture of radio and laser signals. This is part of an experiment that will help us reach Mars.

• The near-infrared message had a data rate of 25 Mbps, despite the distance.

NASA’s Psyche probe continues its journey toward the $10 trillion asteroid after launching aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket last October. Along the way, NASA is testing a new laser communication system.

The first ship equipped with a laser transceiver. Psyche is NASA’s first space probe that, in addition to a traditional radio antenna, is equipped with an optical communications system called Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC).

A DSOC can transmit data much faster than an RF antenna using a near-infrared laser. It’s not that a laser travels faster (light always travels at 300,000 kilometers per second), but that its bandwidth is 10 to 100 times higher, so it can send and receive more data in less time.

New distance record. On April 8, during a flyby that brought Psyche a record 226 million kilometers from Earth, NASA asked the spacecraft to send laser telemetry data in addition to its normal radio wave path.

Competing with NASA’s large Deep Space Network antennas, near-infrared communications reached 25 Mbps, a data rate similar to that of an ADSL connection, although Psyche’s distance was 1.5 times that between the Earth and the Sun.

No more testing on cats. The test also marks the first time the spacecraft has transmitted engineering data using lasers, as the optical communications system has previously been tested through experiments such as broadcasting a 4K video of a cat from 30 million kilometers away.

However, DSOC is not designed to transmit scientific data from the asteroid Psyche once the spacecraft reaches its destination. Its goal is to test over several years a more advanced communication method that could be critical in future interplanetary missions, such as manned missions to Mars.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will test the system again in June, when Psyche will be 2.5 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

A huge probe is heading towards a huge asteroid. With solar panels deployed, Psyche has a wingspan of 24.7 meters. The probe weighs 2,747 kg, although 1,085 kg is xenon, the largest amount ever fired aboard a space probe to power its Hall-effect motors.

Psyche will pass Mars in May 2026 and reach the asteroid Psyche in July 2029, traveling 3.6 billion kilometers.

Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt beyond Jupiter, measures about 230 x 280 kilometers and is not only one of the largest known asteroids, but also the largest known metallic asteroid and a candidate for a protoplanetary core at the time. planet in the solar system.

Image | NASA/JPL

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