Latest news with #lasercommunication
Gizmodo
4 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
A Solar System Internet? Space Laser Test Moves Us Closer
Scientists at the European Space Agency used a laser to communicate with a spacecraft 165 million miles (265 million kilometers) away in deep space for the first time, marking a major step forward in their efforts to build optical communication systems for future missions to the Moon and beyond. Scientists at the Kryoneri Observatory near Athens, Greece, shot a powerful laser at NASA's Psyche mission, which then sent a return signal to the Helmos Observatory, which lies some 23 miles (37 km) away from the signal's origin. 'This is an amazing success. Through years of technological advancements, international standardisation efforts and adoption of innovative engineering solutions we have set a cornerstone of the Solar System Internet,' Mariella Spada, ESA's head of Ground systems Engineering and Innovation, said in a statement. To pull it off, mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory used powerful navigation tools including the the Delta-Differential One-Way Ranging—a kind of interplanetary radio tracking—to provide the ESA with Psyche's exact position. Flight dynamics experts at the agency then designed the test while accounting for variables like air density, temperature, and the Earth's motion. Sections of Greece's airspace were also temporarily closed, just to be safe. 'Enabling this two-way optical handshake meant overcoming two major technical challenges: developing a laser powerful enough to hit a distant spacecraft with pinpoint accuracy; and building a receiver sensitive enough to detect the faintest return signal, sometimes just a few photons, after a journey of hundreds of millions of kilometres,' Sinda Mejri, project manager of the ESA's Ground Laser Receiver system, said. The signal relay is the first of four planned exchanges this summer as part of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications experiment aboard Psyche. On a mission to investigate a metal-rich asteroid beyond Mars, Psyche also carries the DSOC, a gold-capped laser transceiver designed to test long-distance communication systems for future space missions. In December 2023 for example, DSOC managed to beam a video of an orange tabby cat named Taters chasing a laser pointer some 19 million miles (31 million km) back to Earth—a technological feat of the highest order. Psyche itself uses radio to talk to its handlers on Earth, but laser communication systems could significantly speed up the conversation. While this test didn't involve sending any information to Psyche, optical communication systems can pack data into the oscillations of light waves in lasers, encoding messages into an optical signal that is carried to a receiver via infrared. These invisible beams—to our eyes at least—travel at the speed of light, carrying high-definition information from one point to another. This method enables data transmission rates some 10 to 100 times greater than the radio frequency systems used by spacecraft today, according to the agency. 'Combining this technology with the ones we have for radio frequency communications is essential to transmit the ever-increasing data output of the missions exploring the universe,' Andrea Di Mira, project manager of ESA's Ground Laser Transmitter system, said. The entire process requires extreme precision: Laser beams are much narrower than radio signals, which means that that the DCOS's laser reply needs to be aimed in such a way that it takes into account Earth's orbit to determine where the ground-based receiver will be by the time the signal reaches it. The experiment's success marks 'truly a leap step towards bringing terrestrial internet like high-speed connectivity to our deep-space spacecraft,' Rolf Densing, the agency's director of operations, said.
BBC News
07-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Space technology: Lithuania's promising space start-ups
I'm led through a series of concrete corridors at Vilnius University, Lithuania; the murals give a Soviet-era vibe, and it seems an unlikely location for a high-tech lab working on a laser communication that's where you'll find the headquarters of Astrolight, a six-year-old Lithuanian space-tech start-up that has just raised €2.8m ($2.3m; £2.4m) to build what it calls an "optical data highway".You could think of the tech as invisible internet cables, designed to link up satellites with Earth. With 70,000 satellites expected to launch in the next five years, it's a market with a lot of company hopes to be part of a shift from traditional radio frequency-based communication, to faster, more secure and higher-bandwidth laser technology. Astrolight's space laser technology could have defence applications as well, which is timely given Russia's current aggressive attitude towards its neighbours. Astrolight is already part of Nato's Diana project (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), an incubator, set up in 2023 to apply civilian technology to defence Astrolight's case, Nato is keen to leverage its fast, hack-proof laser communications to transmit crucial intelligence in defence operations - something the Lithuanian Navy is already approached Astrolight three years ago looking for a laser that would allow ships to communicate during radio silence. "So we said, 'all right - we know how to do it for space. It looks like we can do it also for terrestrial applications'," recalls Astrolight co-founder and CEO Laurynas Maciulis, who's based in Lithuania's capital, the military his company's tech is attractive, as the laser system is difficult to intercept or jam.It's also about "low detectability", Mr Maciulis adds:"If you turn on your radio transmitter in Ukraine, you're immediately becoming a target, because it's easy to track. So with this technology, because the information travels in a very narrow laser beam, it's very difficult to detect." Worth about £2.5bn, Lithuania's defence budget is small when you compare it to larger countries like the UK, which spends around £54bn a year. But if you look at defence spending as a percentage of GDP, then Lithuania is spending more than many bigger 3% of its GDP is spent on defence, and that's set to rise to 5.5%. By comparison, UK defence spending is worth 2.5% of for its strength in niche technologies like Astrolight's lasers, 30% of Lithuania's space projects have received EU funding, compared with the EU national average of 17%."Space technology is rapidly becoming an increasingly integrated element of Lithuania's broader defence and resilience strategy," says Invest Lithuania's Šarūnas Genys, who is the body's head of manufacturing sector, and defence sector tech can often have civilian and military Genys gives the example of Lithuanian life sciences firm Delta Biosciences, which is preparing a mission to the International Space Station to test radiation-resistant medical compounds."While developed for spaceflight, these innovations could also support special operations forces operating in high-radiation environments," he adds that Vilnius-based Kongsberg NanoAvionics has secured a major contract to manufacture hundreds of satellites."While primarily commercial, such infrastructure has inherent dual-use potential supporting encrypted communications and real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance across NATO's eastern flank," says Mr Genys. Going hand in hand with Astrolight's laser technology is the autonomous satellite navigation system fellow Lithuanian space-tech start-up Blackswan Space has Space's "vision based navigation system" allows satellites to be programmed and repositioned independently of a human based at a ground control centre who, its founders say, won't be able to keep up with the sheer volume of satellites launching in the coming a defence environment, the same technology can be used to remotely destroy an enemy satellite, as well as to train soldiers by creating battle the sales pitch to the Lithuanian military hasn't necessarily been straightforward, acknowledges Tomas Malinauskas, Blackswan Space's chief commercial also concerned that government funding for the sector isn't matching the level of innovation coming out of points out that instead of spending $300m on a US-made drone, the government could invest in a constellation of small satellites. "Build your own capability for communication and intelligence gathering of enemy countries, rather than a drone that is going to be shot down in the first two hours of a conflict," argues Mr Malinauskas, also based in Vilnius."It would be a big boost for our small space community, but as well, it would be a long-term, sustainable value-add for the future of the Lithuanian military." Eglė Elena Šataitė is the head of Space Hub LT, a Vilnius-based agency supporting space companies as part of Lithuania's government-funded Innovation Agency. "Our government is, of course, aware of the reality of where we live, and that we have to invest more in security and defence - and we have to admit that space technologies are the ones that are enabling defence technologies," says Ms Šataitė.The country's Minister for Economy and Innovation, Lukas Savickas, says he understands Mr Malinauskas' concern and is looking at government spending on developing space tech. "Space technology is one of the highest added-value creating sectors, as it is known for its horizontality; many space-based solutions go in line with biotech, AI, new materials, optics, ICT and other fields of innovation," says Mr happens with government funding, the Lithuanian appetite for innovation remains strong."We always have to prove to others that we belong on the global stage," says Dominykas Milasius, co-founder of Delta Biosciences."And everything we do is also geopolitical… we have to build up critical value offerings, sciences and other critical technologies, to make our allies understand that it's probably good to protect Lithuania."
South China Morning Post
17-06-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Chinese satellite achieves 5 times Starlink speed with 2-watt laser from 36,000km orbit
Imagine beaming a HD movie from Shanghai to Los Angeles – crossing three Pacific widths – in less than five seconds using just a night light. This may sound like fantasy because Starlink , operating just hundreds of kilometres above Earth, maxes out at a couple of Mbps. But from a secret satellite parked in stationary orbit more than 60 times higher, a team of Chinese scientists has used a 2-watt laser – dim as a candle – to push data through turbulent skies to Earth at 1Gbps, five times faster than Starlink. Satellite laser downlinks are fast but they face a foe: atmospheric turbulence. It scatters light into extremely weak and fuzzy patches hundreds of metres wide by ground arrival. Previous attempts by researchers from around the world have used adaptive optics (AO) to sharpen distorted light or mode diversity reception (MDR) to capture scattered signals – but neither sufficed alone under strong turbulence. Network and satellite data exchange over planet earth in space 3D rendering elements of this image furnished by NASA. Photo: Shutterstock Led by Wu Jian, a professor from Peking University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Liu Chao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team proposed what they called a 'groundbreaking' solution: AO-MDR synergy.
