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600 Mbps....On The Moon

Last year NASA announced that the agency would be conducting a Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) they believe will someday be capable of delivering speeds up to 600 Mbps. The test was successfully conducted last October, and involved communicating with the LADEE robotic probe orbiting the moon using telescopes that are just under one meter in diameter. NASA believes that these telescopes can eventually be re-engineered to receive 2.5 gigabits per second if made larger (up to three meters).

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According to a NASA statement, the space agency managed to transmit data 384,633 kilometers (239,000 miles) from a ground station in New Mexico to the LADEE robotic spacecraft. NASA only recently issued more detail on the test, noting the technology performed better than expected in various conditions:
quote:
NASA says that the LLCD mission performed better than expected during its 30-day trial. The laser was able to communicate with the Earth stations in broad daylight and even when the Moon had less than four degrees of separation from the Sun. It also worked without error when the Moon was low on the horizon, forcing the laser to pass through a much thicker layer of atmosphere, with atmospheric turbulence having little effect.
With a little more work, scientists believe the system could be used for high-speed broadband delivery to Mars. More detail on the efforts are expected to be unveiled on June 9 at the CLEO laser technology conference in California.

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54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

2 recommendations

54761437 (banned)

Member

Someone's gonna say it, so I might as well

600Mbps from the Moon, but TWC couldn't deliver more than 50Mbit in most areas for over 3 years...over coax! And Frontier can't deliver more than 3Mbit to most of its footprint. Stop me if you've heard this one before.