NASA uses laser to send video of a cat named Taters over 19 million miles
NASA uses laser to send video of a cat named Taters over 19 million miles
NASA, working to send high-bandwidth video and data from deep space to Earth, transmitted a video of a cat named Taters as part of an experiment.
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Bit annoying that they're more specific about latency than bandwidth. The laser had lower latency than broadband, but I want to know if the laser had enough bandwidth to stream the video.
This latest milestone comes after “first light” was achieved on Nov. 14. Since then, the system has demonstrated faster data downlink speeds and increased pointing accuracy during its weekly checkouts. On the night of Dec. 4, the project demonstrated downlink bit rates of 62.5 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 267 Mbps, which is comparable to broadband internet download speeds. The team was able to download a total of 1.3 terabits of data during that time. As a comparison, NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus downlinked 1.2 terabits during its entire mission from 1990 to 1994.
Honestly the 1.2 TB I'm the early 90s is an insanely impressive figure to me. I mean in that era a gigabyte seemed like an obscene amount of data, the interat ran at less than 56 kbps, and I don't think I had a 1GB drive in my hime PC until almost the turn of the millennium. Sending and storing that much from venus is a huge accomplishment.
1.2 Tb* ~ 150GB
Still impressive though
They probably stored it on tape which was slow but could hold an impressive amount of data.
I remember my first multi gig hard drive. I was blown away that I could fully install Diablo 2, Fallout 2, and a cracked version of 3d Studio Max at the same time. No more changing disks!
Lower latency than broadband...?
If you're getting >100s ping times you might want to have them come out to check your lines.
Something tells me you're not getting sub 100ms latency with broadband over 19 million miles
They're new high tech lasers that go faster than the speed of light!
Actually, most latency issues at that scale are due to the relays themselves. Earth diameter is only 42 light-ms
19 million miles is 102 light seconds.
I mean, if their point was that a straight-shot laser had lower point-to-point latency than a system with a bunch of non-direct links, intermediate switches, routers, mix of copper and fiber, etc... Well, no kidding.
Didn't say anything about 100ms though. I was guessing maybe they read 100ms though. Still not sure what the point was.
"The video was then downloaded and each frame was sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where it was played in real time. "
It sounds like it. Laser comm can have some insanely high data rates due to the high frequency of the radiation.
if you want more bandwidth you can just use more lasers
More lasers!!!!