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  • Speedy downloads: Why NASA is turning to lasers for next-gen space comm

    From Fred Bloggs@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 19 08:53:08 2023
    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled photon-
    counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John Smiht@21:1/5 to Fred Bloggs on Sun Nov 19 09:44:53 2023
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 10:53:15 AM UTC-6, Fred Bloggs wrote:
    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms

    Your Sloman rating: "recycled news", 0

    I'm thinking of a system where you'd have classify the post you were reacting as "on-topic" - electronics, or "science", "culture", "politics", "recycled propganda" or "personal abuse/flattery" and rate it on a five point scale, from useful (+2) down
    through helpful (+1) through neutral (0") to unhelpful (-1) to misleading (-2).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From John Larkin@21:1/5 to bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com on Sun Nov 19 09:51:24 2023
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms

    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Fred Bloggs@21:1/5 to John Larkin on Sun Nov 19 10:53:25 2023
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 12:52:10 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms
    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    Not from deep space certainly- but for the orbital stuff they could have repeaters in orbit with large aperture antennas. They could be geostationary and steered electronically (phased) for a geospatial separation sharing of the same band. A 1o beam at
    24,000 miles would be about 400 mile spread, so that would work out quite well.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John Larkin@21:1/5 to bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com on Sun Nov 19 12:30:29 2023
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 10:53:25 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 12:52:10?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
    <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms
    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    Not from deep space certainly- but for the orbital stuff they could have repeaters in orbit with large aperture antennas. They could be geostationary and steered electronically (phased) for a geospatial separation sharing of the same band. A 1o beam at
    24,000 miles would be about 400 mile spread, so that would work out quite well.

    A laser relay station in space would be a good idea too.

    It wouldn't have to be very "large aperature" either. Received optical
    density, watts per square meter, would be ballpark a billion times
    higher if the deep-space transmitter is a laser.

    The earth downlink could certainly be RF. That's the easy part.

    I know people who are working on laser communications between cubesats
    in low orbits.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From whit3rd@21:1/5 to John Larkin on Sun Nov 19 18:39:51 2023
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 9:52:10 AM UTC-8, John Larkin wrote:

    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    Yeah, but... sub-arc-second aiming wouldn't be an easy spec to meet, so
    you probably want some divergence. Otherwise, there's never a receiver
    in the right place, so communication doesn't happen. Heck, at arm's length, you need a millimeter or so clearance to plug in an RJ45... so
    Ethernet needs thousands of arc seconds divergence, in some sense.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John Smiht@21:1/5 to John Larkin on Sun Nov 19 18:49:17 2023
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 2:31:18 PM UTC-6, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 10:53:25 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 12:52:10?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
    <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms
    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    Not from deep space certainly- but for the orbital stuff they could have repeaters in orbit with large aperture antennas. They could be geostationary and steered electronically (phased) for a geospatial separation sharing of the same band. A 1o beam
    at 24,000 miles would be about 400 mile spread, so that would work out quite well.
    A laser relay station in space would be a good idea too.

    It wouldn't have to be very "large aperature" either. Received optical density, watts per square meter, would be ballpark a billion times
    higher if the deep-space transmitter is a laser.

    The earth downlink could certainly be RF. That's the easy part.

    I know people who are working on laser communications between cubesats
    in low orbits.

    Paul Horowitz covers much of this in his talk at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sImBlq542TQ

    Very enjoyable.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John Larkin@21:1/5 to utube.jocjo@xoxy.net on Sun Nov 19 19:07:24 2023
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 18:49:17 -0800 (PST), John Smiht
    <utube.jocjo@xoxy.net> wrote:

    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 2:31:18?PM UTC-6, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 10:53:25 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
    <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
    On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 12:52:10?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
    <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms
    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    Not from deep space certainly- but for the orbital stuff they could have repeaters in orbit with large aperture antennas. They could be geostationary and steered electronically (phased) for a geospatial separation sharing of the same band. A 1o beam
    at 24,000 miles would be about 400 mile spread, so that would work out quite well.
    A laser relay station in space would be a good idea too.

    It wouldn't have to be very "large aperature" either. Received optical
    density, watts per square meter, would be ballpark a billion times
    higher if the deep-space transmitter is a laser.

    The earth downlink could certainly be RF. That's the easy part.

    I know people who are working on laser communications between cubesats
    in low orbits.

    Paul Horowitz covers much of this in his talk at Google: >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sImBlq542TQ

    Very enjoyable.

    Cool. I worked with Paul and Win a while back, loaned them my parts
    exploder for a section of the X-chapters. They exploded the exploder!

    A few of the guys in this ng are named in AoE3 and the X-chapters,
    including Phil Hobbs and the late Jim Thompson.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Martin Brown@21:1/5 to John Larkin on Mon Nov 20 09:26:18 2023
    On 19/11/2023 17:51, John Larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

    Sounds like a kluge when they have to do things like:

    'Even at distances nearer than Mars, the laser signal is relatively fragile. The package arriving at the Hale telescope from Psyche will consist of only a few photons, which is why decoding it relies on an extremely sensitive, cryogenically cooled
    photon-counting detector (made with superconducting nanowire) attached to the telescope.'

    https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/why-nasa-is-turning-to-lasers-next-gen-space-comms

    No RF antenna can deliver sub-arc-second divergence like a laser can.

    The VLA could do it if operated as a phased array to transmit. However,
    it is normally operated as an ultra sensitive receiver when it has sub arcsecond resolution for any frequency above 5GHz.

    The global VLBA network is a few orders of magnitude better still when
    it is all configured and phase corrected - about 25 microarcseconds. It
    would be impossible to use it to transmit in realtime though since the
    phase corrections from the atmosphere over each site have to be
    determined painstakingly slowly and it relies on a bright nearly point
    source object to be able to do that reliably.

    --
    Martin Brown

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  • From a a@21:1/5 to Fred Bloggs on Mon Nov 20 15:53:15 2023
    XPost: free.spam

    The arsehole Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> persisting in being an Off-topic troll...

    --
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    space comms
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  • From a a@21:1/5 to John Smiht on Mon Nov 20 15:53:21 2023
    XPost: free.spam

    The arsehole John Smiht <utube.jocjo@xoxy.net> persisting in being an Off-topic troll...

    --
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  • From a a@21:1/5 to whit3rd@gmail.com on Mon Nov 20 15:53:27 2023
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    The idiot whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com> persisting in being an Off-topic troll...

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  • From a a@21:1/5 to John Larkin on Mon Nov 20 15:54:36 2023
    XPost: free.spam

    The arsehole John Larkin <jl@997PotHill.com> persisting in being an Off-topic troll...

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