by A NASA laser just fired successfully in a deep-space test.
On Nov. 14, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from an instrument that launched with the Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from Earth and heading toward a mysterious metal asteroid.
(The spacecraft is at more than 40 times the average distance of Earth's moon, and still voyaging afar.)
The moment marked the first successful test of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, a next-generation comms link that sends information not by radio waves but instead by laser light.
It's part of a series of tests NASA is doing to speed up communications in deep space, on different missions.
Source
On Nov. 14, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from an instrument that launched with the Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from Earth and heading toward a mysterious metal asteroid.
(The spacecraft is at more than 40 times the average distance of Earth's moon, and still voyaging afar.)
The moment marked the first successful test of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, a next-generation comms link that sends information not by radio waves but instead by laser light.
It's part of a series of tests NASA is doing to speed up communications in deep space, on different missions.
Source
