NASA Streams 4K Video From Aircraft To Space (And Back) At Blistering Speeds Using Laser Tech
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The agency has been advancing optical communications, which use infrared light signals instead of the more conventional radio waves to transmit data. As part of these efforts, it recently conducted a series of flight tests that involved installing a laser terminal on the belly of a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft. This single-engine plane then proceeded to beam 4K video while soaring over Lake Erie to a ground station in Cleveland, Ohio.
From there, the video signal went on an epic journey, passing through NASA's White Sands facility in New Mexico before being fired off into space 22,000 miles away using infrared lasers towards an experimental satellite called the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD). The LCRD then relayed the data to a special terminal aboard the ISS called ILLUMA-T, which beamed it back to Earth.
Despite this incredibly long distance, NASA says the laser link achieved transmission rates of over 900 Mbps. To put that into perspective, the average household internet in the US churns out 245 Mbps as of June 2024.
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