LCRD
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Context
- Recently, NASA launched its new Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) — the agency’s first-ever laser communications system — from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
About
- The LCRD will help the agency test optical communication in space.
- Currently, most NASA spacecraft use radio frequency communications to send data.
- Optical communications will help increase the bandwidth 10 to 100 times more than radio frequency systems.
- LCRD has two optical terminals – one to receive data from a user spacecraft, and the other to transmit data to ground stations.
- The modems will translate the digital data into laser signals.
- This will then be transmitted via encoded beams of light.
- These capabilities make LCRD NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end optical relay.
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Laser communications and radio waves use different wavelengths of light. Laser uses infrared light and has a shorter wavelength than radio waves. This will help the transmission of more data in a short time. |
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