NASA Announced: Completion Of The Longest Distance Optical Communication Demonstration To Date!

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that its ongoing Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment has successfully launched a near-infrared laser nearly 16 million kilometers (10 million miles) away from the Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and encoded the test data.This is the farthest optical communications demonstration to date, NASA said!
On the recently launched Psyche spacecraft, DSOC is configured to send high-bandwidth test data to Earth during its two-year technology demonstration as Psyche travels to the major asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages both DSOC and Psyche. DSOC and Psyche.
The optical communications technology demonstration (dubbed "first-light") was made possible in the early morning hours of Nov. 14 after its Flight Laser Transceiver, a key payload instrument on Psyche capable of transmitting and receiving near-infrared signals, successfully locked on to a powerful uplink laser beacon from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory in Table Mountain, Calif. light") was successfully realized.
In the process, the uplink beacon helped the transceiver target the downlink laser to Palomar, 130 kilometers (100 miles) south of Table Mountain, while automated systems on the transceiver and ground stations fine-tuned its pointing.
Trudy Kortes, Director of Technology Demonstrations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., commented, "Achieving 'FIRST LIGHT' is one of many key milestones for DSOC in the coming months, paving the way for higher data rates capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery and streaming video communications, thus paving the way to support humanity's next giant leap - sending humans to Mars."
A new milestone for DSOC
Test data was also sent simultaneously through uplink and downlink lasers, a process known as "closing the link," which was the primary goal of the experiment. While the technology demonstration does not transmit Psyche mission data, it works closely with the Psyche mission support team to ensure that DSOC operations do not interfere with spacecraft operations.
Meera Srinivasan, director of DSOC operations, part of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said, "Tuesday morning's test was the first time that the ground equipment and flight transceiver were fully integrated, requiring the DSOC and Psyche operations teams to work in tandem. It was a daunting challenge and we still have a lot of work to do, but in a very short period of time we were able to transmit, receive and decode some data."
Prior to this achievement, the project needed to examine several other critical nodes, from removing the protective cover of the flying laser transceiver to powering up the instrument. Meanwhile, the Psyche spacecraft is undergoing its own checks, including powering its propulsion system and testing the instruments that will be used for scientific purposes when it reaches the Psyche asteroid in 2028.
First light, first bit transmission
The DSOC team will now work on improving the system that controls the pointing of the transceiver's upstream and downstream lasers. Once successful, the project can begin to demonstrate how high-bandwidth data transmissions from the transceiver to Palomar can be maintained at all times at different distances from Earth.
The data is encoded as bits in the laser's photons (quantum particles of light). After a special array of superconducting high-efficiency detectors detects the photons, new signal processing techniques are used to extract data from the individual photons that reach the Hale telescope.
The DSOC experiment is designed to demonstrate data transfer rates 10 to 100 times higher than state-of-the-art radio-frequency systems currently in use on spacecraft. Both radio and near-infrared laser communications use electromagnetic waves to transmit data, but near-infrared light packs the data into tighter waves, allowing ground stations to receive more data. This will help future human and robotic exploration missions and support higher resolution scientific instruments.
Optics open up endless possibilities for space communications
Jason Mitchell, director of the Advanced Communications and Navigation Technologies Division of NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, said, "Optical communications are a boon to scientists and researchers who are always looking to get more out of their space missions, and it will make human exploration of deep space possible. More data means more discoveries will be made."
While optical communications have been demonstrated in near-Earth orbit and on the moon, DSOC is the first to be tested in deep space. Like using a laser pointer to track a penny moving a mile away, aiming a laser beam millions of miles away requires extremely precise "pointing".
Abi Biswas, Technical Specialist for JPL's DSOC program, commented, "Achieving 'first light' is a huge accomplishment. The ground system successfully detected deep space laser photons from the DSOC flight transceiver on Psyche. We were also able to send some data, which means we were able to exchange 'light' deep in space."