[X] My Assistant

[RNeuhaus]

I have not found a proper topic in UMSF related to Space Technology improvement, so I picked up ones of Mars.

An interesant article about the successfull test of laser communication between the probe: Messenger and NASA's Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory in Maryland. MESSENGER was approximately 15 million miles (25 million km) away at the time.

Two-way laser communication in space has long been a goal for NASA because it would enable data transmission rates that are 10 to 1,000 times higher than traditional radio waves. While lasers and radio transmissions both travel at light-speed, lasers can pack more data. It’s similar to moving from a dial-up Internet connection to broadband

The Mars Telecommunications Orbiter spacecraft, set to launch in 2010, but cancelled last summer due to budget problems, would have used lasers to transmit data between Earth and Mars at a rate of between 1 to 30 million bits per second, depending on how close the two planets are to each other.

Currently, the maximum data rate between Earth and Mars is about 128,000 bits per second.

A major challenge with laser communications in space is keeping transmitter and receiver locked onto each other. This is like trying to aim the beam of a very strong laser pointer, akin to the type used in a conference room, at a target millions of miles away.

Radio waves radiate outwards from a transmitter in spherical ripples rather than pencil-thin beams like lasers. So the receiver and transmitter in a laser-based communication system have to be pointed very precisely.

In the other word, the major obstacle of laser telecomunications is a good aim between the transmitter and receiver. The case of Messenger is a great deed toward the use of laser telecomunications.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060104_laser_comm.html

Rodolfo