NASA Demonstrates Laser Comms From Aircraft To Space Station

As part of an effort to develop communications systems to transmit video feeds of astronauts on the Moon during Artemis missions, NASA recently demonstrated streaming 4K video footage from an aircraft to the International Space Station (ISS) and back, using a laser communications system.

The first successful test took place on June 26, and further demonstrations are planned through July. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is conducting the demonstrations, NASA said on July 24.

For the demonstration, a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft with a laser terminal installed on its belly flew over Lake Erie and sent video data to an optical ground station in Cleveland. The data then was relayed on a terrestrial network to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where it was sent via a laser communications system to NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) payload onboard the STPSat-6 geostationary satellite.

The LCRD then relayed the signals to the Integrated LCRD LEO User Modem and Amplifier Terminal payload mounted on the ISS, which sent the data back to Earth. NASA says its High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking system helped the laser signal penetrate cloud coverage.

NASA sees laser communications potentially making its data transmission speed 10-100 times faster than conventional radio-frequency systems.

“We can now build upon the success of streaming 4K HD videos to and from the space station to provide future capabilities like HD videoconferencing for our Artemis astronauts, which will be important for crew health and activity coordination,” says Daniel Raible, principal investigator for the project at Glenn Research Center.

NASA says it is interested in using laser communications for a variety of missions, from low-Earth orbit to deep space.