Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. Space News

Meet the new NASA communications system that’s hitching a ride in today’s Psyche launch

By

The launch today of NASA’s Psyche mission to visit a metal asteroid will include an extra bonus, as the spacecraft will carry a test of a new communications system.

Testing Space Lasers for Deep Space Optical Communications (Mission Overview)

The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment will test out a laser-based communications system that could help NASA transmit more information from deep space missions, such as future missions to Mars.

The flight transceiver for NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration can be identified by its large tube-like sunshade on the Psyche spacecraft, seen here inside a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The flight transceiver for NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration can be identified by its large tube-like sunshade on the Psyche spacecraft, seen here inside a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA primarily communicates with its far-off spacecraft using a system called the Deep Space Network, which is a set of three sites in California, Spain, and Australia that have large communications dishes to detect signals sent from space. As these three sites are spaced out around the globe, it is always possible for at least one of them to detect a signal, no matter which direction Earth is facing.

Recommended Videos

It isn’t possible to make communications any faster, as signals travel at the speed of light which is a hard limit — so, for example, the communications delay of up to 20 minutes between Earth and Mars isn’t something that we’ll be able to fix any time soon. But there is another way to improve the existing network, which is to increase its bandwidth.

Related

As there are more and more missions flying into space and the instruments they carry get more and more sophisticated, the total volume of data that needs to be transmitted grows. To accommodate that, communications need to be more to higher frequencies, which can transmit more data in the same amount of time.

That’s the idea for NASA’s ongoing upgrades to its Deep Space Network, which involve retrofitting the existing communications dishes here on Earth, which were designed for radio communications, to be able to handle laser communications as well. Compared to radio communications, laser (also known as optical) systems can carry up to ten times as much data.

As well as upgrading the equipment on the ground, however, the laser-based communications systems also need to be tested in space. NASA has been working on demonstration systems in orbit around Earth for several years, and now it will test the new system on a real mission: Psyche.

For the first two years of Psyche’s journey to the main asteroid belt, DSOC will test out the use of laser communications in a real deep space mission. Data will be collected by the 200-inch (5.1-meter) Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California, testing out the system over distances of up to 240 million miles.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Venus gets a taste of Missy Elliot in NASA communications test
This illustration of the large Quetzalpetlatl Corona located in Venus’ southern hemisphere depicts active volcanism and a subduction zone, where the foreground crust plunges into the planet’s interior.

This illustration of the large Quetzalpetlatl Corona located in Venus’ southern hemisphere depicts active volcanism and a subduction zone, where the foreground crust plunges into the planet’s interior. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Peter Rubin

In space, they say, no one can hear your scream -- but at certain points in our solar system, you might be able to pick up some Missy Elliot. NASA has recently made special use of its communication system, called the Deep Space Network, by sending the lyrics of Missy Elliot's song The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) to Venus.

Read more
NASA selects new date for Starliner’s crewed return
Boeing Space's Starliner docked at the International Space Station in June 2024.

The Starliner spacecraft is shown docked to the Harmony module’s forward port at the International Space Station, 263 miles above the Mediterranean Sea. NASA

Boeing Space’s Starliner crew capsule is now expected to depart the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, June 25, NASA has said.

Read more
NASA sets new target launch date for Starliner spacecraft
The Starliner atop an Atlas V rocket.

The Starliner spacecraft sits atop an Atlas V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Joel Kowsky

After calling off the launch of Boeing Space’s Starliner spacecraft on Saturday with just minutes to go, NASA says it's now aiming to send the vehicle on its first crewed mission at 10:52 a.m. ET on Wednesday, June 5.

Read more