Like millions of office colleagues, Randy Bresnik, Christina Koch, and Kjell Lindgren swapped a bunch of pictures of their pets in June 2024. Unlike most of us, they worked on the International Space Station at the time, 250 miles overhead. The pictures were sent as part of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which achieved speeds of around 1.2 GBits/sec.
To many, the pet pics might not be nearly as interesting as the speed. While most internet users get by with 50-100Mbits/sec, over ten times that much sounds like a technical feat that could be used to upgrade business networks.
Part of NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, LCRD used the same technology you’re using to read this story – lasers. Just like on Earth, the LRDC fires a beam of light blinking on and off to represent the ones and zeroes of binary data, the only difference being the absence of fiber optic cabling.
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