The World According to Mark

By Mark Tabola

As you all know by now, I love space stuff.  It just fascinates me to no end.  So an article from a few weeks back got my attention when it said that NASA was testing using lasers as a form of transmitting information back to earth.  Now, radio waves move really fast, but I've heard that laser communications are better.  And according to the testing done by NASA, they were able to send data back at speeds that are about what you get using typical broadband internet!

NASA's "Psyche" probe, as part of its mission, is testing its Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) equipment.  The idea is to help missions all over the solar system be able to send much more data, much more quickly.  The DSOC or laser transmission increases the amount of data being sent anywhere from 10 to 100 times over methods typically used today.  Not only was this mission groundbreaking for proving the method of communication, but it was also at a record in terms of how far away the probe is from earth!  

Psyche is currently 140 million miles away, as it is heading to orbit around an asteroid, also named Psyche.  Psyche is on its way, and will pass Mars in 2026, and finally reach its destination in 2029.  But along the way, it will be used to continue to test the DSOC hardware, and see how viable it is to use lasers to help speed up communications over "space sized" distances.  This will be important in the future, when it is becoming increasingly probable that humans may walk on Mars, or other parts of the solar system.  And when that time comes, it will be crucial that they have the best possible communications to Earth.