Why a NASA Spacecraft Fired a Laser at Earth

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why in News?
• What is NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft?
• Space Communication and Associated Problem
• NASA’s Revolutionary New Technology
• Significance of the New Technology

Why in News?

• NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, currently over 16 million kilometres away in space, successfully fired a laser signal at Earth (on Nov 14).
• The spacecraft is on its way to a unique metal-rich asteroid (16 Psyche), orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.

What is NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft?

• Psyche is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space mission launched in 2023 to explore the origin of planetary cores by orbiting and studying the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche beginning in 2029.
  • Asteroid 16 Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid [appear to contain higher concentrations of metal phases (e.g., iron-nickel)] orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
  • It may be an exposed iron core of a protoplanet (thought to be developing into a planet), the remnant of a violent collision with another object that stripped off its mantle and crust.
• Psyche uses solar-powered hall effect thrusters for propulsion and orbital manoeuvring, the first interplanetary spacecraft to use that technology.
  • It’s also the first mission to use laser optical communications beyond the Earth-Moon system.
• NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the project. The spacecraft will not land on the asteroid, but will orbit it from August 2029 through late 2031.
• Psyche could provide unique insights into the impenetrable iron core of planet earth.

Space Communication and Associated Problem

• Currently, most space communication is carried out using radio waves because of their desirable propagation properties, stemming from their large wavelength.
  • What this means is that they have the ability to pass through the atmosphere regardless of weather, pass through foliage and most building materials, as well as bend around obstructions.
  • Shorter wavelengths tend to scatter when in contact with any interference.
• Like wireless communications on Earth, spacecraft encode data on various bands of electromagnetic frequencies.
  • Higher bandwidths (range of frequencies) carry more data per second.
  • Thus, scientists would ideally like to transmit data at the highest bandwidths possible to increase the rates of data transfer.
• Communicating with spacecraft far away from Earth poses many challenges, of which the problem of data rates (vast amounts of data transmitted by spacecraft, while moving at rapid speeds) might be the most critical. 

NASA’s Revolutionary New Technology

• NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment demonstrated the use of near-infrared laser signals for communication with spacecraft.
• Much like fibre optics replacing old telephone lines on Earth, NASA says that DSOC will allow data rates at least 10 times higher than state-of-the-art radio telecommunications systems of comparable size and power.
  • This enables higher resolution images, larger volumes of science data, and even streaming video.
• The Psyche spacecraft is the first to carry a DSOC transceiver, and will be testing high-bandwidth optical communications to Earth during the first two years of the spacecraft’s journey to the main asteroid belt.
• The tech demo achieved “first light” (on Nov 14) after this transceiver locked onto a powerful uplink laser beacon.

Significance of the New Technology

• DSOC is taking optical communications into deep space, paving the way for high-bandwidth communications far beyond the Moon and over 1,000 times farther than any optical communications test to date.
• This paves the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.

Q1) Why are comets and asteroids important to understand the solar system?

It is believed that comets and asteroids are the relics of the material that formed the solar system. They could inform us about the chemical composition, the size, and the formation process of the protosolar nebula.

 Q2) What is the asteroid belt?

The asteroid belt is a region of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where most of the asteroids in our Solar System are found orbiting the Sun.

Source: Streaming HD videos from space? Why a NASA spacecraft fired a laser at Earth

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