Testing Space Lasers for Deep Space Optical Communications (Mission Overview)
How might lasers revolutionize deep space communications? NASA will test high-bandwidth laser (or optical) communications for the first time beyond the Moon with a pioneering technology demonstration called Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC).
If successful, this kind of laser communications technology could be used to transmit large volumes of data – such as streaming video and higher-resolution science observations – from robotic spacecraft and from future astronauts exploring Mars.
DSOC is attached to NASA’s Psyche spacecraft and will send and receive signals during the first two years of Psyche’s six-year journey to the metal-rich asteroid of the same name. During its demonstration period, DSOC will not be transmitting Psyche data, but rather its own set of data. The experiment involves a transceiver on the spacecraft along with two ground stations – one at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain facility and the other at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory.
Psyche and DSOC are expected to launch in October 2023
Learn more about the DSOC experiment at https://nasa.gov/technology
The DSOC experiment is sponsored by the Technology Demonstration Missions program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Space Communications and Navigation program within the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the DSOC project for NASA.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Produced by: True Story Films
Transcript
In our everyday lives on the ground, we use optical fibers for really high speed communication, and that capability has been adapted for use in space near Earth.
DSOC stands for Deep Space Optical Communications, which is using lasers to communicate at high rate and the application of that to deep space beyond the moon is what the DSOC project is about.
Primary objective is to give future NASA missions the tools for returning data at much higher rates.
The signals travel at the speed of light, so they come just as fast as they do for the microwaves.
But you could send more data in the same time of a pass for the same spacecraft resources.
The notion of being able to communicate to have video to astronauts on Mars is actually part of the vision that NASA has for optical communications.
DSOC consists of a flight terminal that flies on the Psyche spacecraft and then a ground network that has a station for for transmitting up to the spacecraft and then receiving the laser signal down from the spacecraft.
Here we have to send a laser beam from Earth that the spacecraft has to receive use as a pointing reference and then initiate the communication link.
So it’s a very flight an ground joined at the hip kind of telecommunications system.
DSOC is being implemented as a technology demonstration to show that we know how to build terminals that can do this with the idea that in the future they can be flown as part of the operational communication system on future missions.
And we designed the terminal to operate out to about Mars’ farthest distance.
And Psyche on its cruise actually does a Mars flyby.
So it’s an excellent vehicle for the demonstration of deep space optical communication.
DSOC is the first time that there’ll be optical communication demonstrated beyond the moon.
The leap that DSOC is taking is huge.
I can’t express in words, you know, what this will mean to actually see bits that were transmitted from deep space spacecraft received on the ground, and we can verify that, hey, we got the bits that you sent.
Here they are.
Before that moment of elation and joy, you know, there’s a lot of work that we still need to do and think through.
And so this is a stepping stone for a future operational capability that NASA’s committed to.
There’s a lot of activity in space and a lot of collaborative work that goes on, and it's very exciting to be part of.