Scientists hope that this technology will be helpful in providing live video coverage of astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis Mission. Artemis mission is very important for NASA. Under this, astronauts will once again be sent to the Moon.
Dr. Daniel Raible, principal investigator of the HDTN project at Glenn Research Center, said that this experiment is a tremendous achievement. He said we can now build on the success of 4K HD video streaming from the space station to develop capabilities such as HD video conferencing for our Artemis astronauts.
It is noteworthy that NASA has relied on radio waves to send information from space. This work has been quite reliable so far. In comparison, laser communication uses infrared light, which can send data 10 to 100 times faster than traditional radio frequency systems.
To achieve the recent success, NASA collaborated with the Air Force Research Laboratory. Glenn engineers temporarily installed a portable laser terminal on a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft. He flew the plane. The flying aircraft sent data to an optical ground station in Cleveland, which was then transmitted over the network to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. From there, scientists used infrared light signals to send data.
According to the report, the signals sent reached NASA’s Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) 22,000 miles away from Earth. In this way the signals determined the further advantage and NASA’s experiment was successful.