NASA tests less than $5 million terminal to scale laser comms

Earlier this month, NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts to orbit the moon and used laser communications to beam images back to Earth. While the U.S. space agency operated its primary receivers in California and New Mexico, an experimental, low-cost terminal in Australia also participated in the test. Operated by the Australian National University, this terminal successfully pulled down data broadcast from the Orion spacecraft at a data rate of 260 megabits per second. The terminal cost less than $5 million, compared to other solutions that cost tens of millions of dollars.

The Australian terminal relied on software and telescope technology provided by Observable Space, alongside photonic sensor technology from Quantum Opus to decode the incoming data. This setup allowed the terminal to lock onto and translate the laser transmissions. While laser communications offer much higher throughput than traditional radio frequency transmissions, they are more vulnerable to weather disruptions and line-of-sight issues. Because lasers require a clear path to their target, establishing reception sites on the other side of the Earth from the U.S. is critical. NASA has been testing these deep-space laser communications for several years, including a previous test that established data links with a spacecraft 218 million miles from Earth.

According to Observable Space CEO Dan Roelker, the success of the mission demonstrates that space-to-Earth laser downlinks are ready to scale. Roelker stated that the company can scale the technology over the next year or more, though it has not yet revealed its full strategy. To expand the network, the company plans to seek external collaborations. Roelker noted that they will partner with many people, explaining that they are evaluating “whether this is something we’re going to do ourselves, or partner with other ground station-as-a-service companies, or work with extremely large constellation providers that are going to want to own their own infrastructure.” In this context, ground station-as-a-service refers to a business model for satellite ground infrastructure, while constellation providers are companies operating large networks of satellites.

Why it matters

The successful demonstration of a low-cost laser communications terminal proves that high-throughput space-to-Earth data links can scale, potentially replacing or augmenting traditional radio frequency transmissions. By lowering the cost of ground infrastructure, the technology makes high-throughput space communications far more accessible.