Posted on 02/18/2014 2:20:30 PM PST by Red Badger
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Hong Kong has the world's fastest Internet. Internet on the moon is 10 times faster.
How do our lunar-exploring spaceships get buffer-free video? Lasers. NASA and MIT are shooting "lasers full of Internet" to a ship named LADEE that's exploring the moon's atmosphere. According to NASA, speeds have reached 622 megabits per second (Hong Kong tops out at 63.6).
Right now, the agency is using a pulsed laser beam to transmit a pair of HD video signals to and from the moon. The 239,000 miles between the New Mexico ground station and the moon marks the "longest two-way laser communication ever demonstrated," according to NASA.
In one test, NASA sent an HD video of Bill Nye (the science guy) from a Massachusetts station to the New Mexico transmitters to the moon—and back through the same route—with just a seven-second delay. It takes 1.3 seconds for a signal to make the one-way trip to the moon.
NASA says the information it's receiving now is so precise it can determine LADEE's distance from Earth to within half an inch.
"Suppose you wanted to make a Google Maps image of Mars, and not even as crisp as Google Maps," NASA's Don Boroson told the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. "It would take decades to send that much data back with radio systems we have now. If you had a laser communication system with a 50-times-higher data rate, it would take tens of weeks. Then you could send all the data for a Google Map in one year."
NASA says testing will soon expand to include signals from a European Space Agency station in Spain. Later tests will expand to include daylight operations and different cycles of the moon.
Not really new technology , I was using this between buildings in a campus environment years ago .... Ranges varies with the newer systems but for terrestrial systems, weather , is the limiting factor ....
3 seconds ping time. Who cares. They aren’t playing Asteroids.
You know how we handled 3 second response times in the 70’s? We turned on ‘local echo’ on our ADM3A’s and typed away.
Wimps. They’ve never been on a PDP 11 with 200 other people.
Thanks Red Badger.
HEY MOD! YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED! teehee
Yes...they travel at the same speed...but the increased bandwidth available for light yields faster data speeds...especially compared to copper, which heavily attenuates high frequencies.
I think they are just talking about the frequency for the light being higher they can pack more data into a smaller time frame - I’m with you and others this isn’t a humoungous new breakthrough merely further development of existing tech.
>> to transmit a pair of HD video signals to and from the moon.
Compressed?
One for each eye...................
But again what does the moon have to do with this...you sending data with light been doing that for a long time..so they claim some new breakthrough. .great some new variation on DWDM I guess. .great..what the hell does THE MOON have to do with what ever technology we are talking. .Why is a the moon a needed component in any technology that increases throughput of data..
The gist of the story I guess is it a breakthrough in free space optics transmission of data in outer-space, applicable to lunar and interplanetary communication..so it apply to a small unique niche need in data com and not some new technology that trumps all other data com technology
I dunno. I said, “We already know fiber has a faster maximum than copper, so it’s not a big deal. The big deal is when we can target [with lasers] a complete path on-the-fly,” which makes the same basic point.
>>> Why is everyone wearing goggles if the laser is pointed at the moon?................... <<<
Because the beam is bouncing back. NASA put laser reflectors on the moon back in the Apollo era.
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