NASA’s psyche Less than a month after successfully firing off its “first light” laser data transmission, the spacecraft achieved yet another historic communications achievement. On Dec. 11, the onboard Deep Space Optical Communications Array’s flight laser transceiver transmitted an “ultra-high-definition” video clip to Earth, some 19 million miles away. This is not only a new record for submissions, but also for cat videos.
According to NASA Announcement on December 18th, psyche sent an encoded near-infrared laser beam to Earth last week at a maximum bandwidth speed of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) on its way to the spacecraft’s final destination, a metal-heavy asteroid between Mars and Jupiter. About 101 seconds later, researchers at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory received and downloaded his package of data. The team then sent the individual video frames to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the clips were played in real time. And a cat named Taters made space exploration history.
as NASA explain, the star of a 15-second video clip, is an ode to some of the very first television test broadcast transmissions. Many of these early broadcasts, starting in 1928, included small statues of popular cartoon characters. felix the cat. In honor of cats’ long history in telecommunications, psycheA short scene depicts a large orange tabby dog named Taters chasing a red laser pointer on a couch while relaxing music plays in the background. The overlaid graphic also displays information about the cute cat, such as heart rate, and more pertinent project information, such as: psycheorbit path, technical specifications, and data bit rate information.
[Related: NASA’s Psyche wins first deep space laser relay.]
The demonstration reportedly maintains the highest Internet download rates on Earth, even across millions of miles of space.
“Even though we are transmitting from millions of miles away, [Psyche] We were able to transmit video faster than most broadband Internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, receiver electronics project leader at JPL. explained on monday. “In fact, after the video was received at Palomar, it was sent over the Internet to JPL, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space.”
Thanks to this and the future psyche NASA plans to test laser systems to prepare astronaut communications arrays for long voyages to the moon and Mars.
“Bandwidth expansion is essential to achieving future exploration and science goals, and continued advances in this technology will improve how we communicate during future interplanetary missions,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. We look forward to seeing change,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said in a Dec. 18 NASA announcement. announcement.
But while the Taters are the star for now, the video didn’t just focus on Callback TV’s first test broadcast.
“Today, cat videos and memes are some of the most popular content online,” it reads. NASA announcementAdd Attached materials “Coincidentally, cats like chasing lasers.”
