On Dec. 11, NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., viewed a cat video from 18.6 million miles away, the farthest ever. NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (D.S.O.C.) experiment, aims to improve communication infrastructure for space exploration. The experimentation of laser communications will allow larger amounts of data to be transmitted over longer distances, essential for future Mars missions. Using a Psyche spacecraft, the D.S.O.C. experiment transmitted the cat video to demonstrate this capability. While the data rates of 267 megabits per second are promising, NASA is cautious about the results and requirements for transformed into reliable operations. The D.S.O.C. experiment aims to scale up optical communications technology already used on satellites orbiting Earth, and will continue experimentation to test its limits.
