Cat Taters: NASA’s First Star of Laser Communication

NASA’s scientific laboratory (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL) reached a new milestone in the field of space communication, successfully transmitting Video with a cat from deep space. A video with a cat named Taters was transferred from a distance of almost 19 million miles (about 31 million kilometers) using NASA demonstration laser equipment.

This experiment, conducted on December 11, became part of the NASA technological demonstration aimed at transmitting high- quality video and other data from the distant space. The study opens the way for future missions of man outside the earth’s orbit. NASA Deputy Administrator PAM Mellra emphasized the significance of this achievement to satisfy future needs for data transfer.

15-second test video was transferred to Earth at 101 seconds at a maximum speed of 267 megabits per second. The signal was sent to the Hale telescope in the Palomar Observatory in California, and then live on JPL.

Laser communication, launched along with the mission of NASA “Psyche” on October 13, is designed to transmit data from deep cosmos with a much greater speed than modern radio frequency systems. The technology will be used to transmit complex scientific information, high-quality images and videos, which is the key to send people to Mars.

An interesting fact: for test broadcasts in 1928, a statue of the popular cartoon character of the Felix Cat was used. Today, videos with cats and memes are one of the most popular types of content on the network.

After the first achievements on November 14, the team demonstrated increased data transfer speeds and increased guidance accuracy. On the night of December 4, data transfer speeds 62.5, 100 and 267 Mbps were reached, which is comparable to the speeds of the broadband Internet.

The Optical Communication Project in Far Cosmos is financed by the NASA demonstration technological missions and is supported by