Figure A

Members of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory react to the first high-definition streaming video to be sent via laser from deep space. Riding aboard the recently launched Psyche spacecraft, the DSOC transceiver sent the 15-second video, which features an orange tabby cat named Taters chasing a red laser, back to Earth on Dec. 11, 2023.

In the photo, taken in JPL's mission support area, Ryan Rogalin, DSOC receiver electronics lead, is pointing at the computer screen. To the left, taking a photograph, is DSOC operations lead Meera Srinivasan; Abi Biswas, DSOC technologist, is sitting to the right.

Figure A is a closeup of a computer screen in the mission support area showing a still from the video, as well as the incoming data stream delivering the frames from the video.

The video was transmitted from nearly 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away. The signal took about 101 seconds to reach Earth. The video was sent at the system's maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second. Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, DSOC's flight laser transceiver – a cutting-edge instrument aboard Psyche – beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Palomar in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent "live" to JPL, where the video was played, in real time.

Managed by JPL, DSOC is the latest in a series of optical communication demonstrations funded by the Technology Demonstration Missions (TDM) program within NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate and Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program within the agency's Space Operations Mission Directorate.

For more information about DSOC, visit: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/dsoc