Earth has received a mysterious signal from deep space, the American space agency NASA has revealed. The signal, which came about 140 million miles away, came from NASA's new spacecraft 'Psyche'.
In October 2023, NASA launched a space mission, sending a spacecraft to an asteroid called 'Psyche 16', which is believed to be composed mainly of metal, a rarity in our solar system. The asteroid is said to be located in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
This robotic explorer, named Psyche after the asteroid he was destined for, had another mission: testing laser communications.
Psyche is equipped with the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, which aims to enable laser communications over large distances in space and promises much faster connections than current methods.
Although Psyche primarily uses radio frequency communications, optical communications technology has proven its capabilities. In a remarkable feat, the laser communications demonstration successfully transmitted engineering data from more than 230 million kilometers away, which is 1.5 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, after interacting with Psyche's radio frequency transmitter.
The DSOC also successfully interfaced with Psyche's radio transmitter, allowing it to transmit information and technical data directly from the spacecraft back to Earth.
Meera Srinivasan, head of the project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, explained that during a flyby on April 8, they downlinked about 10 minutes of duplicated spacecraft data. This duplicated data was sent via laser communications, while the original Psyche data was sent to ground control via standard radio frequency communications channels on NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). The goal was to assess whether laser communications could perform as effectively, if not better, than traditional methods.
NASA's optical communications demonstration proved it can transmit test data at a maximum speed of 267 Mbps using the flight laser transceiver's near-infrared downlink laser, which is comparable to broadband Internet speeds. However, because the spacecraft is now much further away, the data transfer rate is slower.
During a test on April 8, the spacecraft successfully transmitted test data at a maximum speed of 25 Mbps, exceeding the project's goal of proving that at least 1 Mbps was achievable at that distance.
Psyche is reportedly stable and healthy as he makes his way to the asteroid Psyche 16 between Mars and Jupiter.