WEBVTT

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what kind of download speeds can you expect on the International Space

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Station what about on Mars well as you can imagine it's not great NASA

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communicates with its Rovers on Mars and all of its deep space probes using the

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NASA deep space Network or DSN which

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unfortunately has some pretty serious limitations due to being both based on

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radio waves and established in 1963

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we'll see if you're still spry when you turn 60 to overcome these challenges

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NASA's jet propulsion laboratory is working on a new system called Deep

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Space Optical Communications or Doo

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which is a laser system that might just be a GameChanger for interplanetary

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communication and yes they've already used it to send a cat video before we

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get into that though let's talk about the old system that Doo needs to be

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better than in many ways the DSN is a scientific and Engineering Marvel it

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uses three antenna arrays in California

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Spain and Australia in order to ensure coverage of the entire sky and each

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array is located in a bull-shaped mountainous area to Shield it from as

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much radio interference as possible the DSN uses a small subset of relatively

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highfrequency radio waves that can easily Escape Earth's atmosphere rather

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than bouncing off the ionosphere and coming right back which can happen with

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lowf frequency radio waves like those used for AM radio radio waves being a

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form of electromagnetic radiation move at the speed of light so using lasers

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wouldn't really speed up communication in the strictly literal sense they would

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however massively increase efficiency and bandwidth the longer an

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electromagnetic wavelength is the less information it can carry every second

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unfortunately radio waves are the longest of the electromagnetic spectrum

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and thus have the lowest carrying capacity the lasers that deso will use

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are in the near infrared region making them comparably tiny and therefore

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allowing a much higher bandwidth this means that an important communication

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from a nearby Planet like Mars would take basically the same amount of time

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to physically reach Earth between 3 and 22 minutes depending on where the two

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planets are in their orbits but 10 to 100 times more information could be sent

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every second a data package that would otherwise take days or months could

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instead be downloaded in a matter of hours the hardware necessary to

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communicate via lasers is also lighter and more compact act than comparable

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Radio Systems meaning that it's easier to fit onto a relatively small probe or

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Rover without excessively increasing the fuel needed to escape Earth's gravity

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well you know another problem with radio waves is that they tend to spread as

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they're transmitted that's not a problem when you want them to go everywhere like

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with a television broadcast but it means that the signal quickly becomes very

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weak once it travels any significant distance from its original source and

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unfortunately almost everything in space is very very far away with lasers you

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still need to account for Signal interference and Distortion over long

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distances but a coherent beam of energy is going to maintain its strength for

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longer think of it like the difference between a shotgun blast and a shot from

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a sniper rifle the energy is more focused and it goes much farther but

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infrared lasers do have physical limitations that radio waves don't they

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require far more precise aim and much like visible light they can't travel

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through opaque objects that's not a major problem though seeing as space is

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mostly empty so when exactly will we be sending those cat videos and what kinds

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of speeds can we expect within our own solar system we'll tell you right after

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might be able to send and receive laser Transmissions feline or otherwise from

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as far as our solar systems inner asteroid belt as soon as 2029 that's

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because we've actually been developing the technology needed to catch Mars

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telecommunications up to the 21st century for several decades scientists

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made their first major breakthrough with extraterrestrial laser Communications in

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1968 when they proved that the surveyor 7 moonlander could detect lasers

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originating on Earth in 1995 the Japanese space agency was able to

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establish two-way laser communication with its ETF s 6 satellite at an

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astounding 1 megabit pers second by 2001

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we had achieved laser communication between satellites and by 2013 NASA used

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lasers to send an image of the Mona Lisa to a satellite orbiting the moon the

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technology has progressed to the point where we can easily transmit data

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between Earth and low earth orbit at not just megabits but even many gigabits per

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second on October 13th 2023 NASA

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launched the psyche Mission a spacecraft Bound for the asteroid 16 psyche which

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sits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that mission will also be an

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important test for the technology behind dck as the psyche spacecraft will encode

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its data and send it back to Earth using infrared lasers the psyche Mission won't

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arrive at its destination until 2029 but it's already made one successful test of

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the new communication system on December 11th 2023 from over 19 Million Miles

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Away the spacecraft sent back an ultra highdefinition video of an orange cat

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reportedly named Tater playing with the dot of a laser pointer the hope is that

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psyche's dock will be able to send data back at 2 megabits per second even after

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it reaches its destination far beyond Mars demonstrating the viability of

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laser communication even in the farthest reaches of the solar system well the

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inner solar system for now but we're coming for you Neptune hey that was a

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techwick thanks for watching like follow And subscribe if you feel like it and

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check out our other videos like this one on the world's longest wireless internet

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range there may be lasers involved I I haven't seen it I don't know