Lasercomm on International Space station to beam video via laser back to Earth

An artist's rendering shows the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS). 

Credit: OPALS

What's more interesting than videos of cats chasing laser beams over the kitchen floor?

How about videos sent over laser beams from NASA's International Space Station back to Earth?

A team of about 20 working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., through the lab's Phaeton early-career-hire program, led the development of the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) investigation, which is preparing for a March 16 launch to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX-3 mission.

The goal is to provide NASA's first optical communication experiment on the orbital laboratory.

Scientific instruments used in space missions increasingly require higher communication rates to transmit gathered data back to Earth or to support high-data-rate applications, like high-definition video streams.

Matt Abrahamson

"Optical communications has the potential to be a game-changer," said mission manager Matt Abrahamson.

"Right now, many of our deep space missions communicate at 200 to 400 kilobits per second."

OPALS will demonstrate up to 50 megabits per second and future deep space optical communication systems will provide over one gigabits per second from Mars.

The Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) instrument is hoisted onto a shipping pallet for transfer to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

From there it will launch to the International Space Station. 

Credit: NASA

"It's like upgrading from dial-up to DSL," added project systems engineer Bogdan Oaida.

Bogdan Oaida

"Our ability to generate data has greatly outpaced our ability to downlink it. Imagine trying to download a movie at home over dial-up."

"It's essentially the same problem in space, whether we're talking about low-Earth orbit or deep space."

OPALS is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, part of a cargo resupply mission to the space station. The payload will be inside the Dragon cargo spacecraft.

Once deployed, OPALS will be conducting transmission tests for a period of nearly three months, with the possibility of a longer mission.

After the Dragon capsule docks with the station, OPALS will be robotically extracted from the trunk of the Dragon, and then manipulated by a robotic arm for positioning on the station's exterior.

It is the first investigation developed at JPL to launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA OPALS Mission: Laser Communications is the future for ISS

This artist's concept shows how the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) laser will beam data to Earth from the International Space Station. 

Credit: NASA.

NASA will use the International Space Station to test a new communications technology that could dramatically improve spacecraft communications, enhance commercial missions and strengthen transmission of scientific data.

The Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), an optical technology demonstration experiment, could improve NASA's data rates for communications with future spacecraft by a factor of 10 to 100.

OPALS has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

It is scheduled to launch to the space station later this year aboard a SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply capsule on the company's Falcon 9 rocket.

"OPALS represents a tangible stepping stone for laser communications, and the International Space Station is a great platform for an experiment like this," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at JPL.

"Future operational laser communication systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do, mitigating a significant bottleneck for scientific investigations and commercial ventures."

Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) Flight System hardware. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

OPALS will be mounted on the outside of the International Space Station and communicate with a ground station in Wrightwood, Calif., a mountain town near Los Angeles.

"It's like aiming a laser pointer continuously for two minutes at a dot the diameter of a human hair from 30 feet away while you're walking," explained OPALS systems engineer Bogdan Oaida of JPL.