Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

Fed up with lousy ‘internet’ speeds in space, NASA is doing something about it

By

nasa lasers broadband space laser internet
NASA
With all the technology needed to look after astronauts on the International Space Station and get rovers trundling over the dusty surface of Mars, you’d have thought scientists would’ve sussed out how to get a high-speed “broadband” connection up and running long ago.

Boosting data-transfer speeds beyond the current trickle of a few megabits a second — described by NASA as “a pittance even by dial-up standards” — would allow researchers to “gather science faster” and study events in space in a more timely fashion. It could also speed up the process of getting video back to Earth shot with cameras on far-away planets.

Recommended Videos

The good news is that scientists believe they’re on the verge of what they’re calling “a broadband moment,” with laser technology set to increase data-transfer speeds by up to 100 times in the next few years.

Related

NASA explains that for the last 60 years or so, it’s been using radio waves to communicate with spacecraft. However, developments in optical communications, in which data is beamed over laser light, present new possibilities for much faster transfer speeds.

In addition, as space missions start to cover greater distances and therefore move further away from Earth, laser technology offers the added value of being able to focus on locations with pinpoint precision, thereby improving the reliability of communications.

“Laser technology is ideal for boosting downlink communications from deep space,” said Abi Biswas, the supervisor of the Optical Communications Systems group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “It will eventually allow for applications like giving each astronaut his or her own video feed, or sending back higher-resolution, data-rich images faster.”

But a number of challenges remain. For example, the relevant ground infrastructure is yet to be built, and the facilities will need to be set up in places where the skies are usually clear because clouds, as well as other atmospheric conditions, can interfere with the lasers.

NASA offers an example of the effectiveness of its laser technology: The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently sends science data back to Earth at a mere 6Mbps maximum. A laser setup could increase the maximum data rate to 250Mbps, however — speed that could significantly transform space-to-Earth communications.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Everything you need to know about SpaceX and NASA’s historic mission
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley (front) participating in SpaceX's flight simulator.

This Wednesday, NASA and SpaceX will launch two astronauts on a journey to the International Space Station (ISS) on the first crewed test flight of the new Crew Dragon capsule.

This launch will be a milestone in the history of American space flight, marking the first time U.S. astronauts have launched from U.S. soil since 2011, and it will also be a carefully choreographed dance representing the culmination of years of work from thousands of scientists, engineers, and administrators across the country.

Read more
About a third of U.S. households lack broadband internet. 5G may change that
d links new 5g home router link nr dwr 2010

A new report that addresses the topic of broadband internet access in the United States features a startling statistic: Almost a third of U.S. households do not have access to a broadband internet connection.

The report was published by market research company The NPD Group. According to a press release published by The NPD Group on Thursday, July 25, the report, known as the Rural America and Technology report, found that 31% of U.S. households didn’t have a broadband connection. In this case, a broadband internet connection would be defined as a connection that provides either a minimum of 25Mbps download speed or greater. The report notes that 31% of households without broadband would work out to “roughly 100 million consumers” who don’t have access to broadband connections and that most of these households are in rural markets.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more