NASA streams first-ever high-definition video from deep space
SAN DIEGO (KSWB) -- NASA has made history once again as they successfully streamed a video from 19 million miles away.
The ultra-high definition streaming video experiment was conducted on Dec. 11 by NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) team, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California reported Monday.
JPL says the technology is the first step to improving communications for future human missions beyond Earth's orbit. DSOC's experiment on the recently launched Psyche spacecraft -- NASA’s first mission to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche -- sent the 15-second video back to Earth, which features Taters the cat chasing a red laser.
The video featuring Taters, a JPL employee's cat, was uploaded before Psyche's launch and sent back from 19 million miles away. Tater’s heart rate, color and breed were also on display in the video.
“This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.”
The video lasted all of 15 seconds, using a cutting-edge instrument called a flight laser transceiver. The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, JPL reports.
The instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, where it was downloaded. Then, each frame was sent to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where the video was played in real time.
According to NASA, the experiment will help improve communications through distances in space and will help with their mission to send humans to Mars.
“One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles. Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data,” said Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s project manager at JPL. “But to make this significant event more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demo as part of the Psyche mission.”
The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. JPL is responsible for mission management, system engineering, integration and test and mission operations.
“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, the project’s receiver electronics lead at JPL. “In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space. JPL’s DesignLab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology – everyone loves Taters.”
Just last week, NASA announced scientists discovered "evidence of a key ingredient for life” on one of Saturn’s moons, marking another historic breakthrough in our journey of exploration through space.