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Loading contentNASA's technology demonstration of laser communication from deep space, flying as a rider on the Psyche spacecraft. It transmitted data over tens of millions of kilometres at rates far beyond radio, proving optical links for future missions.
communication_system:dsocDataset membership
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How Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) connects across Asteria Star — scientific, cultural, and astrological links are kept separate.
Laser communication encodes data on an infrared beam instead of radio waves. Its far shorter wavelength packs data into a tighter beam, promising data rates 10–100× higher than radio — the frontier of deep-space communication, demonstrated by DSOC on the Psyche spacecraft.
Psyche is travelling to the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche to study a possible exposed planetary core.
A NASA optical-communication relay in geostationary orbit that demonstrates two-way laser links between ground stations and spacecraft, a stepping stone toward operational optical relays in the Near Space Network.
The end-to-end function every mission depends on: downlinking telemetry (spacecraft health and science), measuring the signal for tracking and navigation, and uplinking commands. The deep-space and near-Earth networks exist to provide TT&C.
A fleet of geostationary relay satellites that give near-Earth spacecraft — including the ISS and Hubble — near-continuous contact with the ground, instead of only during the few minutes of a ground-station pass. TDRS is the space-based half of NASA's Near Space Network.
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Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
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Orbital data, ephemerides, and small-body parameters for planets, asteroids, and comets.