Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 313,

Laser Communications.

I'm Gary Jordan.

I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the expert, scientist, engineers, and astronauts all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.

Deep space has recently seen a lot of traffic.

Just in the past year we've had experts on this podcast to discuss Orion,

Osiris Rex, Lucy, and Psyche, all spacecrafts that send data back to Earth from the Deep Space

Network. This reliable network has served NASA

and other countries deep space missions for decades.

And with access to space increasing

and more space

network's data rates are limited by the method of transmission, radio waves.

So how can we improve the data rates of deep space communications and

near space communications, lasers? We chatted recently on the podcast with Steve Horowitz

about an optical or laser communications demonstration planned to be on

a riot for Artemis 2. This is the deep space vehicle humans will take to and from

the moon. This demonstration is one of several to better understand the needs for an improved network.

Laser communications over radio can pack a lot more data in a single transmission.

But to make it as robust as possible for any user, you have to have a solid

infrastructure on the ground, transmitters and receivers, to be able to support the demands

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