Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech
A cat named Taters is part of a historical milestone for NASA, which could pave the way for future space comms and data transmission.
As part of a deep space optical communications experiment, NASA successfully beamed an ultrahigh-definition video to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California from 31m kilometres away.
The video features an orange tabby cat named Taters, the pet of a JPL employee, chasing a laser pointer, with overlaid graphics.
The 15-second test video was transmitted via a cutting-edge flight laser transceiver. The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system’s maximum bit rate of 267Mbps.
The instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California, where it was then downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent ‘live’ to the NASA JPL, where the video was played in real time.
The significance of the video
Aside from making a particularly unique cat video, the achievement marks a major milestone in a NASA technology demonstration, which aims to advance optical communications.
The demo is part of NASA’s Psyche mission, which is heading to a unique, metal-rich asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The communications demo is designed to transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the radio frequency systems used by deep space missions today.
At 31m kilometres, the distance Taters’ video was beamed is the equivalent of 80 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.
In addition, the overlaid graphics showed several features from the tech demo, such as Psyche’s orbital path and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate. Taters’ heart rate, colour and breed are also on display.
The technology demonstration will send high data rate signals as far out as Mars’s greatest distance from Earth. This in turn could pave the way for even higher data rate communications capable of sending complex scientific information, high-definition imagery and video. NASA also said in a post on X that these higher data rate communications could support sending humans to Mars in the future.
Ryan Rogalin, the project’s receiver electronics lead at JPL, said the video was able to be sent faster than most broadband internet connections.
“In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space. JPL’s Design Lab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology – everyone loves Taters.”
NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy said the successful beaming of this video underscores the space agency’s commitment to advancing optical communications and meeting future data transmission needs.
“Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.”
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