Today's Edition
BEIJING (AGENCIES)
Researchers have completed a laser communications test between Earth and the Moon, successfully verifying two-way high-speed laser link capabilities in orbit, the Technology and Engineering Centre for Space Utilisation (CSU) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.
After more than a year of in-orbit testing, the team established a two-way laser communication link across a distance of over 400,000 km, marking the expansion of China's space laser communications from near-Earth orbit to deep space, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The researchers developed high-speed superconducting single-photon detection technology and high-sensitivity algorithms to extract valid communication signals from background noise.
To tackle the speed bottleneck, the team developed high-bandwidth signal processing technology and adopted special coding schemes to counter noise.
The test achieved two-way communication rates of 1.25 Mbps uplink and 100 Mbps downlink.
With manned lunar landings and lunar research station construction on the horizon, future lunar exploration will generate massive volumes of observation images and scientific data that traditional communications bandwidth can no longer support.
This Earth-Moon laser "information highway" will provide a new high-speed data transmission route for upcoming lunar missions, the CSU said.
