CLEVELAND — A team of NASA engineers at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is transforming the way astronauts communicate in space.
In the simplest of terms, the team developed a laser communications system which dramatically increases the speed for astronauts to send messages and data from space to earth. The system essentially creates high-speed internet for space.
“Milestones that have never occurred in human history in terms of data pushing from an airplane to the space station," said Mark Russell, an Aviation Safety Officer and Research Pilot for NASA. "This is the groundwork that’s gonna be required for us to go first to the moon and then to Mars, because you can’t do any of this stuff without communication and we’re solving that right now.”
The system relies on lasers which rapidly transfer encrypted data and messages. The Glenn Research team has run tests over Lake Erie using a plane equipped with a laser that establishes a connection to a laser on the ground.
The team on the ground then collects the data and they also evaluate the strength of the connection, which the NASA team says can send data faster than many home internet systems.
“You know our phones are talking to satellites all the time, we get GPS from that all the time, we get information constantly being fed to us from our phones from outer space," said Russell. "But in order to push further out from the constellations around earth, you have to have a signal system that you can push at a high rate of speed with a high amount of data.”
Russell says the practical implications of the technology are huge. Through the laser communications system, NASA can monitor astronauts' physical health and get data on the safety and conditions of spacecrafts.
Already, the team has used the laser system to stream 4K video footage to the International Space System (ISS) and they've also sent other communication.
“We demonstrated secure file transfer," said Rachel Dudukovich, a lead engineer with the NASA Glenn Research Center. "That was the first time it was done on ISS and the first time it was done by the U.S. and we’ve also reached the 900 megabit per second data rates which is the first time it’s been demonstrated on ISS.”
With the communications system research breaking both U.S. and world records for space innovation, the team says this research, based in Northeast Ohio, is something Ohioans can take pride in.
“It’s been an unbelievable ride," said Russell. "Being on a mission this successful is rare.”