NASA's new invisible laser beams are expected to enhance space communication once reaching outer space. The new LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration) arrived in Florida last May.
A desktop model of the Juno spacecraft is seen as NASA officials and the public look forward to the Independence Day arrival of the the Juno spacecraft to Jupiter, at JPL on June 30, 2016 in Pasadena, California. After having traveling nearly 1.8 billion miles over the past five years, the NASA Juno spacecraft will arrival to Jupiter on the Fourth of July to go enter orbit.
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As of the moment, this space laser technology is already fully integrated into the host spacecraft. This means that it is finally ready for its last test, which would allow the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to check if LCRD can survive once it is sent off into space.
"NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) is gearing up for launch this fall, no earlier than Nov. 22," said the giant agency via its official blog post.
However, the exact date for LCRD's launch is not yet confirmed. This would still depend on the output of NASA's last test run.
NASA's Invisible Laser Beams To Enhance Space Communication
According to SlashGear's latest report, the upcoming demonstration of NASA for its new LCRD technology would offer more insights on how laser beams could enhance the current space communication.
International artist Yvette Mattern shows her stunning laser rainbow projection, Global Rainbow, on March 1, 2012 in Whitley Bay, England. The light installation celebrates the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad in the north-east of England. The Global Rainbow has previously lit up the skies of Germany, France and the United States. The projection will shine along the North Tyneside coastline for 4 days, before moving to other locations in the UK.
The advanced Laser Communications Relay Demonstration is expected to reduce the power requirements of a communications system aboard spacecraft.
Aside from this, NASA's new LCRD could also reduce a communications system's weight and size. It would work by extracting the full potential of infrared light's power.
After that, LCRD would send and receive information encoded into the invisible laser beams from various locations. NASA is also working on other space missions right now. These include the new NASA Lucy asteroid mission.
Meanwhile, NASA Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture water vapor in one of Jupiter's moons.
Other Activities of NASA
NASA also confirmed that it would use a gamma-ray telescope to map the Milky Way Galaxy.
The giant space agency would specifically rely on COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) to study various space activities in the solar system's host galaxy. These include stars' deaths, chemical elements' formations, and more.
It is expected to be launched this coming 2025.
For more news updates about NASA and its upcoming space missions, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.
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Written by: Griffin Davis
