NASA received a message from a ship thousands of kilometers from Earth

Through NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, Earth received a laser message from 140 million miles (226 million kilometers). Scientists assured that this achievement offers insight into the future and greater data information.

According to the space agency, the feat would open the door to future missions to Mars. ““We downloaded about 10 minutes of duplicate data from the spacecraft during a pass on April 8,” said Meera Srinivasan, project operations leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

It should be noted that the message that arrived was a radio frequency produced by a laser, transmitted by Psyche.

The organization explains that the communications technology is designed to transmit data from deep space. With speeds 10 to 100 times faster.

“Until then, we had been sending test and diagnostic data on our downlinks from Psyche. This represents an important milestone for the project by showing how optical communications can interface with a spacecraft’s radio frequency communications system,” he added. Srinivasan.

The spacecraft was launched on October 13, 2023. During the initial test, a data rate of 267 megabits per second was transmitted. According to the experto, “a bit rate comparable to broadband Internet download speeds.”

Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) is part of the Psyche project. Both aim to demonstrate that it is possible for laser communications across cosmic distances. That is, allowing a fast connection between humans and the probes that are sent.