-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueSignal Integrity
If you don’t have signal integrity problems now, you will eventually. This month, our expert contributors share a variety of SI techniques that can help designers avoid ground bounce, crosstalk, parasitic issues, and much more.
Proper Floor Planning
Floor planning decisions can make or break performance, manufacturability, and timelines. This month’s contributors weigh in with their best practices for proper floor planning and specific strategies to get it right.
Showing Some Constraint
A strong design constraint strategy carefully balances a wide range of electrical and manufacturing trade-offs. This month, we explore the key requirements, common challenges, and best practices behind building an effective constraint strategy.
- Articles
- Columns
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
NASA’s Deep Space Communications Demo Exceeds Project Expectations
September 19, 2025 | NASAEstimated reading time: 4 minutes
The project has exceeded all of its technical goals after two years, setting up the foundations of high-speed communications for NASA’s future human missions to Mars.
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology successfully showed that data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth at distances comparable to Mars. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the technology demonstration recently completed its 65th and final pass, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal, from 218 million miles away.
“NASA is setting America on the path to Mars, and advancing laser communications technologies brings us one step closer to streaming high-definition video and delivering valuable data from the Martian surface faster than ever before,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “Technology unlocks discovery, and we are committed to testing and proving the capabilities needed to enable the Golden Age of exploration.”
Record-breaking technology
Just a month after launch, the Deep Space Optical Communications demonstration proved it could send a signal back to Earth it established a link with the optical terminal aboard the Psyche spacecraft.
This video details how the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment broke records and how the technology demonstration could pave the way for future high-bandwidth data transmission out to Mars distances and beyond. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“NASA Technology tests hardware in the harsh environment of space to understand its limits and prove its capabilities,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Over two years, this technology surpassed our expectations, demonstrating data rates comparable to those of household broadband internet and sending engineering and test data to Earth from record-breaking distances.”
On Dec. 11, 2023, the demonstration achieved a historic first by streaming an ultra-high-definition video to Earth from over 19 million miles away (about 80 times the distance between Earth and the Moon), at the system’s maximum bitrate of 267 megabits per second. The project also surpassed optical communications distance records on Dec. 3, 2024, when it downlinked Psyche data from 307 million miles away (farther than the average distance between Earth and Mars). In total, the experiment’s ground terminals received 13.6 terabits of data from Psyche.
How it works
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, the experiment consists of a flight laser transceiver mounted on the Psyche spacecraft, along with two ground stations to receive and send data from Earth. A powerful 3-kilowatt uplink laser at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility transmitted a laser beacon to Psyche, helping the transceiver determine where to aim the optical communications laser back to Earth.
Both Psyche and Earth are moving through space at tremendous speeds, and they are so distant from each other that the laser signal — which travels at the speed of light — can take several minutes to reach its destination. By using the precise pointing required from the ground and flight laser transmitters to close the communication link, teams at NASA proved that optical communications can be done to support future missions throughout the solar system.
Another element of the experiment included detecting and decoding a faint signal after the laser traveled millions of miles. The project enlisted a 200-inch telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County as its primary downlink station, which provided enough light-collecting area to collect the faintest photons. Those photons were then directed to a high-efficiency detector array at the observatory, where the information encoded in the photons could be processed.
“We faced many challenges, from weather events that shuttered our ground stations to wildfires in Southern California that impacted our team members,” said Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist and supervisor at JPL. “But we persevered, and I am proud that our team embraced the weekly routine of optically transmitting and receiving data from Psyche. We constantly improved performance and added capabilities to get used to this novel kind of deep space communication, stretching the technology to its limits.”
Brilliant new era
In another test, data was downlinked to an experimental radio frequency-optical “hybrid” antenna at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex near Barstow, California. The antenna was retrofitted with an array of seven mirrors, totaling 3 feet in diameter, enabling the antenna to receive radio frequency and optical signals from Psyche simultaneously.
The project also used Caltech’s Palomar Observatory and a smaller 1-meter telescope at Table Mountain to receive the same signal from Psyche. Known as “arraying,” this is commonly done with radio antennas to better receive weak signals and build redundancy into the system.
“As space exploration continues to evolve, so do our data transfer needs,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program at the agency’s headquarters. “Future space missions will require astronauts to send high-resolution images and instrument data from the Moon and Mars back to Earth. Bolstering our capabilities of traditional radio frequency communications with the power and benefits of optical communications will allow NASA to meet these new requirements.”
This demonstration is the latest in a series of optical communication experiments funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Technology Demonstration Missions Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the agency’s SCaN program within the Space Operations Mission Directorate. The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the University of California, Berkeley is the principal investigator. NASA JPL, managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management.
Testimonial
"In a year when every marketing dollar mattered, I chose to keep I-Connect007 in our 2025 plan. Their commitment to high-quality, insightful content aligns with Koh Young’s values and helps readers navigate a changing industry. "
Brent Fischthal - Koh YoungSuggested Items
UK Space Agency Goes Global with 23 New Projects
09/30/2025 | UK Space AgencyA new batch of 23 projects will strengthen international space partnerships, develop national capabilities and boost economic growth, the UK Space Agency announced.
Space Forge Inc. and United Semiconductors LLC Partner to Develop the Supply Chain for Space-grown Semiconductor Materials
09/29/2025 | Space Forge Inc.Space Forge Inc., the advanced materials company revolutionizing semiconductor manufacturing in space, has announced the signing of a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with United Semiconductors LLC, a leading specialist in bulk crystal growth of III-V semiconductor compounds. The agreement formalizes the ongoing collaborative efforts that started over a year ago, marking a significant step forward in strengthening the partnership between the two companies.
BAE Systems-built Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and SWFO-L1 Spacecraft Successfully Launch
09/29/2025 | BAE SystemsBAE Systems is celebrating the successful launch of two spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, supporting vital NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) space weather missions.
Planet to Open New Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Berlin
09/26/2025 | BUSINESS WIREPlanet Labs GmbH, a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, announced plans to begin production of next-generation, high-resolution Pelican satellites in Germany.
Teledyne Labtech Leads Groundbreaking Welsh Space Cooling Project with Bangor University
09/25/2025 | BUSINESS WIRETeledyne Labtech, a leading innovator in advanced electronic PCB solutions is spearheading a pioneering Welsh disruptive technology that could revolutionize thermal management in space electronics.