MIT-NASA Develop First Interplanetary Laser Communications

A NASA–MIT Lincoln Laboratory team is undertaking a project to develop and the first deep-space, interplanetary laser communication link by 2010. The Mars Laser Communication Demonstration (MLCD), which will fly on the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter spacecraft, aims to test a laser-based communication link that would operate at a rate nearly ten times higher than any existing interplanetary radio communication. Today, the maximum data rate transmitted to Earth by spacecraft at Mars is about 128,000 bits per second (for NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft). Depending on weather and atmospheric conditions on Earth, and the positions of the planets, the team expects to receive data at a rate of a million bits per second, and possible 30 times higher. The experiment is a partnership among NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL). http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/optical.html