NASA Demonstrates Laser Data Communication With Lunar Orbiter

[Guest]

NASA has made its first step beyond its more than 50 year-old radio wave-based Deep Space Network (DSN), to communicate with spacecraft.

NASA Demonstrates Laser Data Communication With Lunar Orbiter : Read more

 

[A Bad Day]

Good to hear that NASA hasn't been killed by the major budget crunches. Hate to be an engineer there though. Watching coworkers go and working in relatively empty areas has to be lonely, and paranoid-inducing.

The DSN is said, however, to deliver a "few megabits per second" of bandwidth at this time with more modern devices, such as the Mars rovers. In the future, NASA hopes to achieve as much as 600 Mb/s bandwidth with its space network.

Some decent error-correction coding and looks it's viable...

Unless if some jerk somehow determines the exact location of the laser and puts a lead sheet in its path.

 

[SirGCal]

300bps... That is Horribly slow. I don't see a realistic application for something of that speed with any real data size. I.E. video-chat with deep space craft, internet for same, etc. Perhaps basic text but even images at that speed would be extremely painful. Most people old enough to remember dialup modems being common place, they were magnitudes faster. However, this is a first step. We'll see where it goes.

 

[mbreslin1954]

"For example, signals from Voyager 1, the spacecraft currently farthest away from the distance, . . ."

Huh?

Currently farthest away from the distance? Someone needs proof-readers.

 

[calmstateofmind]

[citation][nom]francesm[/nom]my neighbor's mother makes $63 every hour on the internet. She has been out of a job for five months but last month her income was $13516 just working on the internet for a few hours. Read more here www.pie21.com[/citation]

She must have her own site, if you know what I mean...

 

[thecolorblue]

Well this sucks for SETI

 

[bluekoala]

[citation][nom]SirGCal[/nom]300bps... That is Horribly slow. I don't see a realistic application for something of that speed with any real data size. I.E. video-chat with deep space craft, internet for same, etc. Perhaps basic text but even images at that speed would be extremely painful. Most people old enough to remember dialup modems being common place, they were magnitudes faster. However, this is a first step. We'll see where it goes.[/citation]
300bps is actually a dial-up speed. I work for a telco and I can tell you that 300bps is amazing considering this thing orbits THE FRICKEN MOON.

 

[mrmaia]

[citation][nom]SirGCal[/nom]300bps... That is Horribly slow. I don't see a realistic application for something of that speed with any real data size. I.E. video-chat with deep space craft, internet for same, etc. Perhaps basic text but even images at that speed would be extremely painful. Most people old enough to remember dialup modems being common place, they were magnitudes faster. However, this is a first step. We'll see where it goes.[/citation]

The link is made for communication, not your everyday porn videos. It's a laser beam aimed 240k miles goddamn away from Earth, what did you want? A cable connection?

 

[manofchalk]

Potential fix to the bandwidth issue, multiple lasers.
Though I'm sure there are much smarter people than I in NASA who can point out every reason why that wouldnt work and/or is unfeasible if it hasnt alerady been done. So I'l just be quiet now.
At the very least we now have an effectively instant method of communication, sure even a primitive use of the laser firing off Morse code would be faster than radio at these distances.

 

[Guest]

Achievable bandwidth over any distance will not have any effect of the time it takes for the signals to go from one place to another. Pls correct the phrasing.

> Current radio transmission data rates heavily depend on the distance the signal has to travel. For example, signals from Voyager 1, the spacecraft currently farthest away from the distance, need more than 30 hours to reach Earth. The DSN is said, however, to deliver a "few megabits per second" of bandwidth at this time with more modern devices, such as the Mars rovers. In the future, NASA hopes to achieve as much as 600 Mb/s bandwidth with its space network.

 

[Cutha]

At the very least we now have an effectively instant method of communication, sure even a primitive use of the laser firing off Morse code would be faster than radio at these distances.

Both radio and laser are part of the electromagnetic spectrum and both travel at the speed of light, neither is instant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation

 

[manofchalk]

^ "Effectively" instant.
Fully aware that over the distances were talking when it comes to space travel, nothing will ever cover that distance instantly.

 

[CrArC]

[citation][nom]manofchalk[/nom]^ "Effectively" instant.Fully aware that over the distances were talking when it comes to space travel, nothing will ever cover that distance instantly.[/citation]Cutha is simply saying that radio waves travel just as fast. Which is still not instant. Not even close.

Regarding the bandwidth issues you mentioned, one way would be to use multiple wavelengths in the beam. Another would be to use polarisation to separate multiple communication streams. However, both these options would likely be irrelevant (as well as impractical) as the bandwidth limitation is not caused by the laser medium itself but rather the quality of the link.