News Excerpt:

Recently, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from its Psyche spacecraft, which is currently over 16 million km away.

How spacecraft transmit vast amounts of data:

Like wireless communications on Earth, spacecraft encode data on various bands of electromagnetic frequencies. 

• Most space communication was initially carried out using radio waves with the highest wavelengths but the lowest frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Higher bandwidths (range of frequencies) carry more data per second. Thus, scientists would ideally like to transmit data at the highest bandwidths possible to increase data transfer rates.
• Radio waves carry higher bandwidths and can pass through the atmosphere regardless of weather, pass through foliage and most building materials, and bend around obstructions.

About Psyche Spacecraft Mission

NASA’s Launch Services Program is responsible for the launch vehicle's insight and approval and manages the Psyche mission's launch service.

• The Psyche mission is a journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. 
• Trajectory: The Psyche spacecraft was targeted to launch in summer 2022 and travel to the asteroid using solar-electric (low-thrust) propulsion, arriving in 2026, following a Mars flyby and gravity-assist in 2023.
• Scientists believe this asteroid is the nickel-iron core of an early planet, studying which could provide unique insights into the impenetrable iron core of our own planet.

How it works:

• The Psyche spacecraft will spend about 100 days in initial checkout to ensure everything functions correctly before firing its thrusters. 
• About 2.5 years after launch, the spacecraft will fly by Mars for a gravity boost. 
• About 5.5 years from now, the cruise period will end, and around June 2029, the images on the spacecraft can be used to take photos of the asteroid Psyche. 
• In August 2029, the spacecraft will drop into its first 26 months of planned orbits around the metal-rich asteroid.
• Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) will demonstrate operations for nearly two years after NASA’s Psyche mission launch while en route to its 2026 Mars flyby.

Why do we need the Psyche Spacecraft Mission?

Scientists infer the presence of metallic cores deep within rocky, terrestrial planets - including Earth - but these lie unreachable far below the planets' rocky mantles and crusts. 

• Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) experiment

The Psyche mission will test a sophisticated new laser communication technology that encodes data in photons at near-infrared wavelengths (rather than radio waves) to communicate between a probe in deep space and Earth. 

• Using light instead of radio allows the spacecraft to communicate more data in a given amount of time. 
• DSOC will allow data rates at least 10 times higher than state-of-the-art radio telecommunications systems of comparable size and power, enabling higher resolution images, larger volumes of science data, and even streaming video.
• The Psyche spacecraft is the first to carry a DSOC transceiver and will be testing high-bandwidth optical communications to Earth during the first two years of the spacecraft’s journey to the main asteroid belt. 

Future Space Travel

• DSOC is taking optical communications into deep space, paving the way for high-bandwidth communications far beyond the Moon and over 1,000 times farther than any optical communications test.
• In the future, it will help pave the way toward higher data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video to support humanity’s next giant leap - sending humans to Mars.   

Conclusion:

An ingenious experiment flying on NASA's Psyche mission successfully completed the most distant laser communications demonstration. The technology demonstration could one day assist NASA missions in probing farther into space and learning more about the universe's origins.