NASA Beams Video From Space via Laser
06.06.14 - NASA successfully beamed a high-definition video 260 miles from
the International Space Station to Earth Thursday using a new laser
communications instrument. Transmission of "Hello, World!" as a video message
was the first 175-megabit communication for the Optical Payload for Lasercomm
Science (OPA ...
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NASA successfully beamed a high-definition video 260 miles from the
International Space Station to Earth Thursday using a new laser communications
instrument.
Transmission of "Hello, World!" as a video message was the first 175-megabit
communication for the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), a
technology demonstration that allows NASA to test methods for communication with
future spacecraft using higher bandwidth than radio waves.
"The International Space Station is a test bed for a host of technologies
that are helping us increase our knowledge of how we operate in space and enable
us to explore even farther into the solar system," said Sam Scimemi,
International Space Station division director at NASA Headquarters in
Washington. "Using the space station to investigate ways we can improve
communication rates with spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit is another example of
how the orbital complex serves as a stepping stone to human deep space
exploration."
Optical communication tools like OPALS use focused laser energy to reach data
rates between 10 and 1,000 times higher than current space communications, which
rely on radio portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Because the space station orbits Earth at 17,500 mph, transmitting data from
the space station to Earth requires extremely precise targeting. The process can
be equated to a person aiming a laser pointer at the end of a human hair 30 feet
away and keeping it there while walking.
To achieve this extreme precision during Thursday’s demonstration, OPALS
locked onto a laser beacon emitted by the Optical Communications Telescope
Laboratory ground station at the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood,
California, and began to modulate the beam from its 2.5-watt, 1,550-nanometer
laser to transmit the video. The entire transmission lasted 148 seconds and
reached a maximum data transmission rate of 50 megabits per second. It took
OPALS 3.5 seconds to transmit each copy of the "Hello World!" video message,
which would have taken more than 10 minutes using traditional downlink
methods.
"It's incredible to see this magnificent beam of light arriving from our tiny
payload on the space station," said Matt Abrahamson, OPALS mission manager at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "We look forward
to experimenting with OPALS over the coming months in hopes that our findings
will lead to optical communications capabilities for future deep space
exploration missions."
The OPALS Project Office is based at JPL, where the instrument was built.
OPALS arrived to the space station April 20 aboard SpaceX's Dragon cargo
spacecraft and is slated to run for a prime mission of 90 days.
View the "Hello, World!" video transmission and animation of the transmission
between OPALS and the ground station, at:
For more information about OPALS, visit:
For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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