NASA’s asteroid hunter mental illness, recently launched into space, is designed to give us a glimpse of a body that may resemble the depths of the Earth, where we may never reach. However, one tool accompanying it on its journey is exciting scientists specializing in an entirely different field: space communications. Since the dawn of the space age, such communications have relied on radio waves, a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. But scientists hope to soon expand their scope to another part of the spectrum. Its goal is to add lasers to our cosmic communication equipment.
The main mission of the spacecraft mental illness Exploring a potato-shaped asteroid 232 kilometers across, it orbits about three times farther from the Sun than Earth. One of the main theories is also called a target asteroid mental illnessThe metallic core of a possible ancient planet that lost its rocky surface after frequent collisions in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
If so, exploring its unique iron, nickel, and rock would be the closest we’ll come to exploring Earth’s metallic core.
It will take six years for the spacecraft to arrive and find out if the asteroid’s measurements of the metal surface are correct. If so, we may find ourselves with more extraterrestrial material than the writers Pulp In the 1940s and 1950s, encounters with other asteroids caused the metal ejecta to freeze into strange shapes.
But space communication researchers will start seeing results very soon. The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment will be the first demonstration of laser or optical communications beyond the Moon and will help astronauts return to the Moon and take the next big leap: Mars. This is a major step in ushering in a new era in space communications.
If this and other experiments work as expected, the lasers will provide a much-needed boost to the bandwidth limitations facing a major off-planet communications system called the Deep Space Network (DSN). DSN’s three radio antenna sites, each dominated by a 70-meter satellite dish, are located 120 degrees apart in Spain, Australia, and the California desert. Today, the demands of dozens of space missions, from the James Webb Telescope to small commercial satellites (pay-for-service) must compete for network time.
“There can be conflicting demands between multiple missions,” said Mike Levesque, DSN program manager in NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) office. “Today 20% of requests are not fulfilled. The problem will get worse with time. By 2030 it will be 40%.
And in the future, 40 more space missions will be launched, each of which will require time from the communications network. More importantly, some of those missions will involve humans as astronauts work on the moon, building laboratories and shelters, with instruments that transmit high-definition video and metabolic measurements. They don’t want to say that they have to wait for commercial CubeSats, minisatellites that transmit various types of scientific data and provide Internet connectivity, to proliferate in low-Earth orbit.
“Delays may be acceptable for science, but for human tasks we all need to be on hand,” says Jason Mitchell, project manager at SCaN. “When we go to the moon and plan to go to Mars and see what human astronauts want, the scientific instruments will also grow. “We can send terabytes of data every day.”
In a newly launched demonstration experiment, researchers aim to exploit the ability of laser light to carry more information over radio waves. The near-infrared optical wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are so short—measured in nanometers—and the frequencies are so high that they can carry more information in one place, enabling data transmission speeds 10 to 100 times faster than those on radio. .
“That’s why optics is such a good option,” says Mitchell. “The data speed is too high.”
For similar capabilities, laser systems can also be smaller than radios, so they require less power, another important factor when the spacecraft travels a few hundred million kilometers from home.
For the past decade, NASA has been testing new technology in different environments, from low Earth orbit to the moon. Instrument on board mental illness This is an important milestone, as it will enable the first experiment in deep space, with optical communication defects. Because the laser beam is short, it must be aimed very precisely at receivers on Earth, a challenge that increases with distance.
Abhijit Biswas, DSOC program technician at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who developed the instrument, compares the difficulty to trying to hit a moving coin from a mile away. Even a shake can interfere: to keep the transceiver steady mental illnessJPL installed special struts and actuators to isolate the 81-foot (about 25 meters) long spacecraft from vibrations.
Other potential problems are clouds on Earth, which can block the optical beam, and the signal weakens significantly as distance increases and the beam scatters. This limits its use to distances beyond Mars, at least with current technology. Therefore, before the spacecraft travels further towards the asteroid, testing will be carried out only in the first two years of the journey.
For these reasons, as well as the fact that a terrestrial network of optical receivers does not exist today, no one predicts the time when laser communication will replace radio waves. But I can add a new channel. “Future operations will be designed for diversity,” says Biswas.
During tests on board mental illness, a five-kilowatt transmitter on Table Mountain in southern California, will transmit a low-speed communications packet — from the spacecraft to a laser transceiver attached to an 8.6-inch telescope. . It uses a camera that counts light particles, or photons, to lock onto the beam and download the message before sending it high-speed to the 200-inch (about 508 centimeters) Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar near San Diego. Its accuracy can be compared to the original.
Even at distances closer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. A collection from the Hale Telescope mental illness It carries only a few photons, so its decoding depends on a highly sensitive, cryogenically cooled photon-counting detector (made of superconducting nanowires) attached to the telescope.
For Biswas, an expert in laser spectroscopy, the optical communications experiment was the culmination of a decade of effort. “It’s very exciting,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of things for the first time.”
Although laser communication, like multi-passenger lanes on highways, will not prevent future traffic jams on the Deep Space Network, some messages may help avoid traffic jams in space.
Article translated Debbie Bonchner.
This article appeared first Spanish is knownA non-profit publication dedicated to making scientific knowledge available to all.
You can follow Meaning Inside Facebook, X e InstagramClick here to get Our weekly newsletter.
