Speedier Space Transmissions

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment—currently aboard the Psyche spacecraft en route to a distant asteroid—includes a laser transmitter that operates like a radio, but with far more data-carrying oomph. In December, at a distance of 19 million miles from Earth, the system sent a 15-second transmission back home at a maximum rate of 267 megabits per second—equivalent to internet broadband. The tech portends big things for missions to Mars and elsewhere. “If you look at Mars rovers, you get several images per day,” says Abi Biswas, NASA’s project technologist for the optical communications system. “With this optical communications link, we expect to be able to deliver ultra-high definition video and stream it down.”