You may recall that the psyche mission had a major component that was an ability to send larger amounts of data from longer distances.
Until now, we've been using radio waves to transmit data from longer distances (though we have compressed data from shorter distances, which ups the amount of data that can be returned). This technology allows us to use lasers to achieve the mission parameter, about 1 MBps.
While it was still "near" to earth, they transmitted a prerecorded cat video with no data loss.
Now, they are transmitting telemetry and "new" data from a distance about 1.5 as far as the earth to the sun … and achieving an astonishing 25 MBps.
It's exciting. And opens up new possibilities for deep space communication.
It's a function of the equipment used and distance, but for context, Apollo missions to the moon had a latency of about 3 seconds. This would be essentially real time.
https://www.iflscience.com/nasa-just-received-laser-message-beamed-from-a-colossal-226-million-kilometers-away-73968
https://www.iflscience.com/nasa-just-received-laser-message-beamed-from-a-colossal-226-million-kilometers-away-73968
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