NASA launches Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD)

Context

NASA has launched its new Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) — the agency’s first-ever laser communications system. The LCRD will help the agency test optical communication in space.

About LCRD

• LCRD is part of the Space Test Program 3 mission, which is a joint venture between the US Space Force and NASA.
• This new way of communicating with spacecraft could expand the possibilities of what we could learn from future missions across the solar system.
• This laser communications technology is also known as optical communications as it uses infrared light to send information. According to NASA, this technology provides “higher data rates than traditional radio frequency systems.”
• The higher data rates will allow the space agency to send more data in each transmission, which makes it a faster way of space communication.

Optical terminals

• 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.