Laser Communications Realize Years of Innovation at Goddard Launching later this year, NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) mission will showcase the dynamic powers of laser communications technologies pioneered at Goddard. With NASA’s ever-increasing human and robotic presence in space, many missions can benefit from a new way of communicating with Earth, thanks in part to years of NASA and Goddard-funded research and development initiatives. Since the beginning of spaceflight in the 1950s, NASA missions have leveraged radio frequency communications to send data to and from space. Laser communications, also known as optical communications, will further empower missions with unprecedented data capabilities.
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cuttingedge • goddard’s emerging technologies
Volume 17 • Issue 4 • Summer 2021
Measuring Light and Shadow Illustration of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Test Program Satellite-6 (STPSat-6) with the Laser Com-
As science instruments munications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) payload communicating data over infrared links. evolve to capture highdefinition data like 4K video, when designing and developing mission concepts. missions will need expedited ways to transmit “LCRD will demonstrate all of the advantages of information to Earth. With laser communications, using laser systems and allow us to learn how to NASA can significantly accelerate the data transfer use them best operationally,” said Principal Investiprocess and empower more discoveries. gator David Israel at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Laser communications will enable 10 to 100 times Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “With this capabilmore data transmitted back to Earth than current ity further proven, we can start to implement laser radio frequency systems. It would take roughly nine communications on more missions, making it a weeks to transmit a complete map of Mars back to standardized way to send and receive data.” Earth with current radio frequency systems. With How it Works lasers, it would take about nine days. Additionally, laser communications systems are ideal for missions because they need less volume, weight, and power. Less mass means more room for science instruments, and less power means less of a drain of spacecraft power systems. These are all critically important considerations for NASA
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Both radio waves and infrared light are electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths at different points on the electromagnetic spectrum. Like radio waves, infrared light is invisible to the human eye, but we encounter it every day with things like television remotes and heat lamps. Continued on page 9
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