NASA to Test 600 Mbps Laser Broadband
by Karl Bode 10:31AM Friday Sep 06 2013
NASA has announced that the agency will be testing laser-based broadband technology this week they believe will be capable of delivering speeds up to 600 Mbps. The test will involve communicating with a probe that orbits the moon using telescopes that are just under one meter in diameter. NASA believes that these telescopes can eventually be re-engineered to receive 2.5 gigabits per second if made larger (up to three meters).
MIT Technology Review offers a good read on how the satellite industry hopes to migrate from radio to laser communications to offer higher bandwidth satellite communications, though this is a push that has been decades in the making. This latest NASA test will use detectors at up to four locations to manage the technology’s long-time nemesis: clouds.
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“This is demonstrating the first optical data transmission for a deep-ish space mission. If you resize it and partly reëngineer it, you could potentially do it to Mars,” he says. Because clouds block photons, detectors are being installed at three spots: one each in California and New Mexico, and a third on the Canary Islands. On this mission, though, the system will merely be tested.
This latest version of laser-based communications is being pushed by a company creatively named Laser Light Communications, who say they hope to have an initial 48 ground stations to improve cloud-dodging and reliability when they eventually push the product commercially.
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