new era of interplanetary communication
NASA’s Psyche probe continues its journey towards the $10 trillion asteroid. It’s a six-year journey that the space agency is using to test its new laser communications system.
Distance record. This time, the Demonstrator of Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) technologies managed to exchange messages with Psyche at a distance of 466 million kilometers, which is equivalent to the maximum distance between Earth and Mars.
The system is not intended to transmit scientific data from a spacecraft, but to test the reliability of laser communications at interplanetary distances. An experiment that will be especially useful in future manned missions to the Moon, as well as for the first trips to Mars.
How does this work. Psyche is NASA’s first space probe that, in addition to a conventional radio antenna, is equipped with a laser transceiver capable of communicating with two ground stations at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
DSOC can transmit data up to 100 times faster than an RF antenna thanks to its near-infrared laser. It’s not that laser travels faster (light always travels at 300,000 kilometers per second), but it has a higher frequency than radio waves, allowing more data to be packed into each transmission.
Broadband communications in deep space. Since Psyche launched in October 2023, NASA has downloaded approximately 11 terabits of data through DSOC. The first test involved broadcasting a 4K video of a cat from a distance of 30 million kilometers.
DSOC reached its maximum data rate when the spacecraft was 53 million kilometers away: 267 Mbps, a speed similar to that of a fiber-optic connection. In the previous test, at a distance of 390 million kilometers, the data transfer rate was 6.25 Mbps, which is significantly higher than the radio signal at this distance.
The case of SpaceX. SpaceX is also experimenting with laser communications. During the Polaris Dawn mission, the Dragon spacecraft established laser communications with Starlink satellites for the first time.
This new broadband connection allowed them to transmit live, high-definition video as they orbited Earth at an altitude of 1,400 km and performed the first-ever private spacewalk. SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillies also played the violin from space, accompanying the orchestra on Earth.
Break for Psyche. Returning to deep space, the Psyche probe’s transceiver is currently turned off, but will be reactivated on November 4 to test its functionality after a year in space. The system is expected to return to full capacity once solar power is interconnected later in the year.
Psyche will pass Mars in May 2026 and reach the asteroid Psyche in July 2029, traveling 3.6 billion kilometers. Measuring 230 x 280 kilometers, it is not only one of the largest known asteroids, but also the largest metallic asteroid for which we have evidence, and a candidate for the bare protoplanetary core of an old solar system planet.
Image | NASA/JPL
In Hatak | NASA has been pursuing an asteroid worth ten trillion euros for years. And just launched a mission to get to him