NASA’s Revolutionary Laser Communications Mission: 6 Things You Need To Know

NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will use laser communications systems to transmit data from space to Earth. Below are six things you need to know about NASA’s revolutionary LCRD mission.

1. Laser communications will transform how NASA gets info to and from space. Since the dawn of space exploration, NASA has used radio frequency systems to communicate with astronauts and spacecraft. However, as space missions generate and collect more data, the need for enhanced communications capabilities increases. LCRD leverages the power of laser communications, which uses infrared light rather than radio waves, to encode and transmit information to and from Earth. Both radio waves and laser infrared light waves are forms of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths at different points on the spectrum. Missions encode their scientific data onto the electromagnetic signals to send back to Earth. The infrared light used for laser communications differs from radio waves because it occurs at a much higher frequency, allowing engineers to pack more data into each transmission. More data yields more information and discoveries about space at once. Using infrared lasers, LCRD will send data to Earth from geosynchronous orbit at 1.2 gigabits-per-second (Gbps). At this speed and distance, you could download a movie in under a minute. Read more...

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