|
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
(JPL) 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."
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.
The OPALS instrument was built at JPL and is
slated to fly on the Dragon capsule in late 2013.
The mission is expected to run 90 days after installation
on the station.
The OPALS Project Office is based at JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena.
(NASA)
|
