The program that has been in charge of analyzing this type of communications is called SCaN.
Photo: NASA
Images and videos of pets and animals They flew through space at a speed of 1.2 gigabits per second, meaning its streaming was faster than most home internet connections. This, thanks to NASA’s first end-to-end bidirectional laser relay system.
For this reason, astronauts Randy Bresnik, Christina Koch and Kjell Lindgren, along with other agency employees, They sent photos and videos of their pets from the International Space Station. Which allowed the SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program to show the power of laser interactions and at the same time test a new networking technique.
According to Kevin Coggins, SCaN program director, this demo was inspired by Taters the Cat, a video of an orange cat that was transmitted, through laser links, 30 million kilometers to the Psyche probe, which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, using a SpaceX rocket, to explore the origin of planetary nuclei by studying an asteroid.
The images and videos were on a computer at a mission operations center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. From there, NASA sent the data to optical ground stations in California and Hawaii. The submission included photos of cats, dogs, birds, cows, pigs, snakes and more animals.
This demonstrated the power of communications with new technologies, such as infrared light, and the ability of a new network connection technique. Well, since the beginning of space exploration, NASA missions have used radio frequency to send data to and from space.
