NASA recently demonstrated its Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD)

About Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD)

• It was launched in December 2021.
• It is the agency’s first-ever laser communications system.
• The LCRD will help the agency test optical communication in space.
• LCRD is a technology demonstration that will pave the way for future optical communications missions.
• The LCRD payload is hosted onboard the US Department of Defense’s Space Test Program Satellite 6 (STPSat-6).
• It will be in a geosynchronous orbit, over 35,000km above Earth.

Features:

• It has two optical terminals. One to receive data from a user spacecraft, and the other to transmit data to ground stations.
• The modems will translate the digital data into laser signals. This will then be transmitted via encoded beams of light.
• These capabilities make LCRD NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end optical relay.