20 October 2017
NASA Psyche mission to use laser communication
..., will also test new communication hardware that uses lasers instead of radio waves. The asteroid Psyche has ...Program. STMD stands for Space Technology Mission Directorate and laser communication is expected to revolutionise future space endeavours. ...
19 January 2018
Chinese study proposes using lasers to clear out space debris
..., called "Impacts of orbital elements of space-based laser station on small scale space debris removal," was conducted...that, debris removal is affected by inclination and RAAN, and laser station with the same inclination and RAAN as debris has the...
31 May 2019
Melting moon dust with lasers to use in lunar habitats
...the process safe, to set up and test the appropriate laser while keeping the weight budget," says Professor Ludger Overmeyer ...to achieve it." Currently, the team are working on adapting the laser to fit on the lunar rover, which is integrated into a ...
August 2020
Interstellar aspirations
... to construct a gram-class spacecraft, dubbed ‘nanocraft’. The second breakthrough is the rapidly decreasing cost of laser technology and increased laser power. Laser costs and capability have been on a ‘Moore’s Law’ curve for the past decade and...
07 August 2019
Crater evidence points to a past mega-tsunami on Mars
... is F. Costard at Université Paris-Saclay, France, after they picked through data collected from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). These mirror features seen in marine impact craters...
12 August 2019
Communicating water-powered CubeSats tested in space by NASA
... can overwhelm most conventional RF downlink systems. For this reason, laser downlinks have now become popular. However, not only must the onboard laser need to point its beam with sufficient accuracy and precision so that...
