The moon now has a better internet connection than you do, 622Mb/sec

The moon now has a better internet connection than you do

Using lasers, the Moon now gets up to 622Mb/sec communications

After months of testing, it looks like the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration is ready to be deployed in a real world scenario. Among other things, it likely means that we can send HD video into space at a greater speed than you can stream it to your home.

Transmitting information from space back down to Earth has always been a struggle. The radio frequency systems used today are not capable of delivering any significant quantity of real time information through space, but it was the only thing we had. Much in the same way that some environments have successfully attempted to use lasers for packet transmission here on Earth, a huge laser system in White Sands, New Mexico has demonstrated that we can send information to the Moon and back in record time.

A joint research group consisting of NASA and the MIT Lincoln Labhave been successfully shooting lasers full of internet back and forth from a spacecraft orbiting the Moon since October. The results of this laser based communication system showed a possible 622MB per second (that’s megabit, not megabyte) transmission rate. These speeds are affected by a number of variables, including the position of the spaceship relative to the Sun and the condition of the atmosphere at the time of transmission. Unlike some forms of laser communication, this transmission post has proven it can even transmit data through thin clouds. In one test an HD video was sent to the Moon and back in 7 seconds, an impressively short trip compared to how long it takes to fire up Netflix here on Earth.

This is huge progress for interstellar communications, and in a world where many science eagerly wait for the next high resolution photo from Curiosity to be transmitted and reassembled here on Earth it’s a clear sign that we need this moving forward. With the proven success of this transmission system, it will be interesting to see how long it will be before real world applications for this technology are implemented in our existing operations.