5 Things to Know About NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Oct. 12, 2023, with a new target launch date.
Slated to launch on Oct. 13 with the Psyche mission, DSOC will demonstrate technologies enabling the agency to transmit higher data rates from deep space.
NASA’s pioneering Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment will be the first demonstration of laser, or optical, communications from as far away as Mars. Launching with NASA’s Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name on Friday, Oct. 13, DSOC will test key technologies designed to enable future missions to transmit denser science data and even stream video from the Red Planet.