NASA plans to begin testing a refrigerator-sized laser communications upgrade on the International Space Station by the end of the year. This is a demonstration of a large-scale relay system for the ISS that could chart the future of how humans will communicate not only in low orbit, but also on the moon and beyond.
Radio has long served as the primary means of communication for both manned and unmanned missions. space dot com Note that laser communication arrays have many advantages. From a purely logistical point of view, the device is cheaper and lighter than wireless devices. On the other hand, because lasers have short wavelengths, they can transmit much more information at once than radio waves.
NASA’s Integrated LCRD Low-Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) will launch aboard an upcoming SpaceX commercial resupply service mission in December 2021 during NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) works in conjunction with ILLUMA-T uses infrared. Light can be used to send and receive laser communications at higher data rates than ever before. As these transmission speeds increase, more video and images can be sent to Earth at about 1.2 Gigabits per second. This is comparable to a stable Internet connection on Earth.
[Related: NASA is testing space lasers to shoot data back to Earth.]
“Laser communications provide mission flexibility and a way to quickly retrieve data from space,” said Badri Younes, former associate deputy administrator of NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program. “We are integrating this technology into near-Earth, lunar and deep-space demonstrations.”
After installation, ILLUMA-T will first transmit data to and from the LCRD satellite in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above Earth. Meanwhile, the LCRD will transmit data to Earth from two observation stations in California and Hawaii. These stations were chosen because of their relatively low cloud cover, which often interferes with laser transmissions.
“ILLUMA-T is not the first mission to test laser communications in space, but it does bring NASA closer to operational deployment of the technology.” NASA wrote in a recent statement: In 2022, a small CubeSat in low Earth orbit will begin testing laser communications as part of its space program. Terabyte infrared delivery system. before that, Lunar laser communication demonstration In 2014, it also sent and received data to and from lunar orbit. Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer Mission. Still, NASA explains that the combination of all these tests will further help advance aerospace communications between Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond.
