With the successful installation of an advanced laser communication system on the Psyche probe, NASA recently announced a significant advancement in deep space communication. In this ground-breaking demonstration, a high-definition video feed was transmitted from a spacecraft located 19 million miles from Earth. The video, which lasts for 15 seconds and features the cute orange tabby named Taters, is the first to be streamed from deep space. It also shows off the possibility of transmitting high-data-rate communications, which is necessary for complicated missions such as sending humans to Mars.
The Psyche probe, which is currently traveling to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to study a metal-rich object, transmitted the video using a laser transceiver. The video's encoded near-infrared signal was successfully received by the Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory and forwarded to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, despite being 80 times farther away from Earth than from the Moon.
Although radio waves have historically been the primary means of communication for space missions, the use of lasers can greatly increase the data rate by a factor of 10 to 100. With a maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second, the ultra-HD video took 101 seconds to travel to Earth, faster than most residential broadband connections.
But a video of a cat? JPL claims that there is a long-standing relationship between broadcasting and cats. A statue of Felix the Cat was shown as a test image in the 1920s, when American television was just getting started. Cats have also become incredibly popular in meme culture and online videos. Taters' video was selected to honor this momentous occasion in deep space communication.
