Dogs, cats, canariesbut also chickens, cows, pigs And snakes: hundreds of pet photos and videos belonging to astronauts and NASA employees were transmitted between Earth and International Space Station at the speed of 1.2 gigabits per second (higher than that of any home Internet connection) to experience a new laser communication system which in the future will be able to improve connections with space missions.
For this experiment, NASA took inspiration from another laser communication test in space which in 2023 featured the tabby cat Taters: the HD video showing him playing on the sofa was sent to Earth from a record distance of 31 million kilometers from the Psyche space probe.
Video Hundreds of photos of pets in space for a test (source: NASA)
This time the images and videos of the animals are started from a computer at the operations center in Las CrucesNew Mexico, and were routed to optical ground stations in California And Hawaii to be translated into infrared light signals. From there they were sent into orbit, first to NASA LCRD satellitethen to the system Illuma-T mounted outside the Space Station. Finally the data was transmitted back to Earth.
Since the beginning of space exploration, NASA missions have relied on radio frequency communications to send data to and from space. Laser communications, on the other hand, use infrared light instead of radio waves to send and receive information. Both infrared and radio waves travel at the speed of light, but infrared can transfer more data in a single link, making it more efficient. This is due to the narrower wavelength of infrared light, which can pack more information into a signal than radio communications.
The experiment also allowed NASA to test new protocols For avoid communication delays and data loss.
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