NASA Laser Communication System Aboard LADEE Sets Record with Data Transmissions to and from Moon

NASA's first system for two way communication using laser, 'Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration' (LLCD), sets record for data transmission to and from moon.

NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) set record using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data between moon and Earth over a distance of 239,000 miles at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits per second (Mbps).

NASA's LLCD, aboard $280-million- lunar mission LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), uses laser instead of radio waves. LLCD also showed an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps sent from the primary ground station located in Mexico to the spacecraft LADEE that is currently orbiting around the moon 380,000 kilometers away.

"LLCD is the first step on our roadmap toward building the next generation of space communication capability," Badri Younes, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation (SCaN) in Washington, said in a statement. "We are encouraged by the results of the demonstration to this point, and we are confident we are on the right path to introduce this new capability into operational service soon."

Since its first venture into space, NASA has heavily relied on radio frequency communication. But due to growing demand for excess data capacity the radio frequency communication is reaching its limits.  With laser communication the space agency can extend its communication capabilities like enhanced image resolution and 3D transmission from deep space.

"The goal of LLCD is to validate and build confidence in this technology so that future missions will consider using it," said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This unique ability developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory has incredible application possibilities."

LLCD is a precursor of a large and more potent project- the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, which will be launched in 2017.

LCRD is going to test the ability to relay data from one ground station at White Sands, N.M., to another at NASA JPL through a laser communications terminal in geostationary orbit," 22,000 miles above the Earth, Cornwell said. 

The 100-days-robotic mission LADEE was launched in September. It is designed to provide data that will help scientists determine whether the mysterious glow the astronauts observed on the lunar horizon during the previous Apollo mission was caused by dust. Simultaneously it will explore the lunar atmosphere.