Page 9 - IOE_Winter 24

FURTHER SPACE

DEVELOPMENTS

Cat Video streamed from Deep Space using Laser leap in space communication technology. The
Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University
In an outstanding development on December
and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
11th. NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications
experiment managed to transmit an ultra-high- Ryan Rogalin, the project’s Receiver Electronics
definition cat video from a distance of 19 million Lead at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, comments:
miles from Earth.
“ Despite transmitting from millions of miles away,
it was able to send the video faster than most
broadband internet connections. In fact, after
receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL
over the internet, and that connection was slower
than the signal coming from deep space.”
[ Reference: West, P., Electronic Specifier, 21st.
December 2023 ]

Graphene set to revolutionise Space Exploration
and Satellite Technology
In the 19th. November issue of Electronic Specifier
some recent applications of graphene in the
space industry are described, each of which
The experiment successfully beamed back a has groundbreaking implications. These are as
fifteen-second-long video featuring a cat named follows:
Taters that was transmitted via a flight laser
transceiver, taking 101 seconds to reach Earth at
a maximum bit rate 267 megabits per second.
The instrument, capable of sending and receiving
near-infrared signals, directed an encoded
laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar
Observatory in San Diego County, California. Each
frame was then relayed live to NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Southern California.
The technology, part of NASA’s Psyche mission
launched on October 13th., aims to transmit data
from deep space at rates ten to a hundred times
greater than current radio frequency systems. This
enhancement is seen as being vital for sending
scientific information, high-definition imagery, and
video, which is critical for future Mars missions.
The Deep Space Optical Communications
demonstration is seen as representing a significant

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