NASA Station Transmits First Laser Communication to Space – NASA

NASA’s LCOT (Low-Cost Optical Terminal), a ground station built with modified commercial hardware, has transferred its first laser communications uplink to TBIRD (TeraByte Infrared Delivery), a payload the size of a ton box. which were in Earth’s orbit.

During the first live sky test, NASA’s LCOT generated enough power for the TBIRD payload to identify the laser beacon, connect and maintain contact with the ground station for more than three minutes. . This successful test marks an important achievement for laser communications: connecting the LCOT laser beam from Earth to TBIRD required one milliradian of pointing accuracy, equivalent to hitting a target of three feet from more than eight American football fields.

The experiment was one of many laser communications successes that TBIRD has made during its successful two-year mission. Before its project was completed on September 15, 2024, the payload was transmitted at a record 200 gigabits per second. In a real-world application scenario, TBIRD’s three-minute connection time with LCOT will be enough to retrieve more than five terabytes of valuable scientific data, equivalent to more than 2,500 hours of descriptive video. high at the same time. As LCOT’s space probe shows, the laser’s superior communication capabilities will allow spacecraft to maintain communication with Earth while traveling farther than ever before.

NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program office is implementing laser communications technology on a variety of missions, including the upcoming Artemis II mission, to demonstrate its potential impact on the agency’s exploration mission. to create and promote discovery.

“Optical, or laser, communication can transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than radio waves,” said Kevin Coggins, SCaN’s assistant director and program manager. “In fact, it is the wave of the future, as it will help scientists manage the increasing amount of data from their missions and will serve as our vital lifeline for astronomers to and from Mars.”

Historically, space missions have used radio waves to send data to and from space, but with scientific instruments taking in more data, communications equipment must meet increasing demand. The infrared light used for laser communications transmits data at shorter wavelengths than radio, meaning ground stations on Earth can send and receive more data per second.

The LCOT team continues to improve the pointing capability with additional experiments with NASA’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration). As LCOT and other laser communications missions continue to reach new milestones in connectivity and access, they demonstrate the potential of laser communications to revolutionize scientists’ access to new data about Earth, the center of our planet and beyond.

“It’s a testament to the hard work and ability of the whole team,” said Dr. Haleh Safavi, LCOT project leader. “We work with very complex and sensitive equipment that must be installed with incredible precision. These results required fast planning and execution at all levels.”

Experiments such as TBIRD and LCRD are just two of the many SCaN demonstrations in the laser communications space, but a powerful laser communications network relies on ground stations that can be easily fixed on Earth. The LCOT ground station demonstrates how the government and aerospace industry can build and operate flexible laser network stations to meet the needs of a wide variety of NASA and commercial missions, and how the stations These ground-breaking technologies open new doors for communications technology and very high data volumes. transmission.

NASA’s LCOT is developed by the agency Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland. TBIRD was developed in partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL) Lexington. TBIRD was flown and operated as a joint effort among NASA Goddard; NASA’s Ames Research Center California’s Silicon Valley; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Southern California; MIT-LL; and Terran Orbital Group in the Irvine, California area. Funding and maintenance of LCOT and other communication laser displays comes from (SCaN) Space Communications and Navigation program office within the Space Research Administration at NASA Headquarters Washington.