NASA, the US space agency, has announced that Earth has received an enigmatic signal from outer space. The signal emanated from NASA’s latest spacecraft, “Psyche,” some 140 million miles away.

NASA launched a space mission in October 2023 to investigate a spacecraft designated ‘Psyche 16’, an asteroid that is thought to be mostly made of metal, which is unusual for an asteroid in our solar system. According to reports, the asteroid is situated between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt.

The robotic explorer, named Psyche for the asteroid it is headed toward, also had a laser communications test to complete.

Psyche is fitted with the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, which promises far quicker connections than existing techniques by enabling laser communication over great distances in space.

Though radio frequency communication is still the primary means of communication for Psyche, optical communications technology has shown promise. After interacting with Psyche’s radio frequency transmitter, the laser communications demo accomplished a remarkable feat: it was able to relay engineering data from almost 140 million miles away, or 1.5 times the distance between Earth and the sun.

Additionally, the DSOC interfaced with Psyche’s radio transmitter successfully, enabling direct data transmission of engineering and information from the spaceship back to Earth.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory downlinked 10 minutes of duplicated spacecraft data using laser communications, aiming to assess the effectiveness of laser communications over traditional methods. The demonstration demonstrated a maximum data transmission rate of 267 Mbps using a near-infrared downlink laser, similar to broadband internet speeds.

On April 8, the spacecraft successfully transmitted data at 25 Mbps, exceeding the project’s goal of 1 Mbps. Psyche is stable and healthy as it approaches Psyche 16.