NASA said in a statement that the company provides a “glimpse” into the future of space communications press release.
Moreover, it could support “humankind's next great leap” in sending humans to Mars.
“We downloaded about 10 minutes of duplicate spacecraft data during its flyby on April 8,” said Meera Srinivasan, project operations manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“Until then, we have transmitted test and diagnostic data in our downloads from Psyche. This represents an important milestone for the project by demonstrating how optical communications can work with the spacecraft's radio system.”
Recent demonstrations by NASA show that it can transmit data through space at speeds similar to broadband Internet download speeds.
In an experiment conducted in 2023, NASA sent a 15-second video clip to Earth from a distance of 31 million kilometers.
Originally, the data was uploaded in advance, but the project can now send the data to the spacecraft and receive it back the same evening.
The total journey to the Psyche spacecraft and back is 450 million kilometers.
“We've learned a lot about how far we can push the system when the weather is clear, even though storms sometimes disrupt operations at both Table Mountain and Palomar,” said Ryan Rogalin, receiver electronics project manager at JPL.
While radio communications can be transmitted in most weather conditions, optical communications require relatively clear skies.
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