Mission to demonstrate this technology passes critical review step

Dec 4, 2013 09:55 GMT  ·  By
An artist rendering of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration hosted aboard a Space Systems Loral commercial communications satellite
   An artist rendering of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration hosted aboard a Space Systems Loral commercial communications satellite

According to officials with the American space agency, a new NASA mission whose purpose will be to demonstrate speed-of-light communications throughout the entire solar system has just passed a critically-important review step. The demonstrator spacecraft is currently scheduled to launch in 2017.

The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) seeks to prove that focused laser beams can be successfully used to transmit data across the solar system, much faster than currently possible with radio waves and other methods. For example, it now takes about 8 to 10 minutes for signals emitted from Earth to reach robots on or around Mars.

These times could be significantly reduced, researchers at NASA say. The LCRD mission was created precisely to achieve this purpose. Though it will only be a test spacecraft, its success or failure will largely determine if we will continue to pursue our dream of using lasers to communicate in space.

The project recently passed a major NASA evaluation milestone called the Preliminary Design Review, which looks at the overall state of the project, instead of its details, and then evaluates its chances of being successful. LDCR passed this critical review with flying colors, mission managers say.

The mission, which is managed by experts at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2017, aboard a Space Systems Loral commercial satellite.

LCDR is largely meant to follow in the footsteps of the highly-successful Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) mission, which was also developed at NASA. The Goddard team is supported by colleagues at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Space Systems/Loral (SSL), and the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The NASA “board concluded that the LCRD review was a resounding success. They met all review success criteria and the LCRD team is ready to proceed with mission plans to conduct this ground-breaking demonstration,” explains PDR leader Tupper Hyde.

“The LCRD team demonstrated that the mission design fulfills NASA requirements and the mission architecture will meet the agency’s needs, goals and objectives. We are very pleased that we are ready to proceed with flight hardware activities,” adds LCRD project manager Michael Weiss.