NASA researchers recently tested their “space laser,” a laser-based communication device, by sending 4K video footage from an airplane to the International Space Station and back.The goal behind the project is to potentially provide live video of a Moon landing during the Artemis missions. It’s also the first step in creating a communications network that would allow people on Earth to communicate with humans on Mars and beyond, The Verge reports. NASA traditionally uses radio waves to transmit data and communicate with space, but laser communication can be 10 to 100 times faster.NASA used the space laser last year to transmit a cat video from space back to Earth. In that particular test, the video took 101 seconds to reach Earth and was sent at the system’s then-maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second.
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The next Artemis mission, where we might get to see that Moon landing live thanks to the technology, is currently scheduled for 2028.
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