To communicate with space probes such as Voyager, radio communication technology is used. But with humans wanting to travel further, faster communication systems that can accommodate high data are needed. To realize this dream, NASA has started experiments for a laser-based Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) communication system.
DSOC was placed on the Psyche spacecraft which was launched on October 13. On November 14, a laser signal from Psyche was sent to Earth, which at the time was 16 million kilometers away. This signal was successfully received and made it the farthest laser communication signal ever made, equivalent to 40 times the distance between the earth and the moon.
The time it takes for the signal to reach the earth is 50 seconds. More signal transmission test this test will be done once a week. The climax of the test was when Psyche approached Mars, which is 377 million kilometers from Earth.
In this situation, the laser signal will take 20 minutes to arrive. NASA will then send the signal back to Psyche. This is a complicated process because the position of Psyche has changed from the position when the first signal was sent.
The current radio communication system has a data transmission speed of only 5.2 Mbps which is too slow for the communication needs between the earth and the future Mars colony. DSOC wants to increase the data transmission rate between 10-100 times to enable real-time video communication and faster transmission of big data.