Like many Internet users, NASA also seems to have succumbed to cat videos. But after having made one, the American agency of course took it on a short detour through space — about 30 million kilometers away.
The operation was part of a very serious test of a new cutting-edge technology: a laser communication system, promising for the future of space exploration.
For the first time, NASA transmitted a streaming video from deep space using this system on December 11, it announced Monday.
The star of this 15-second video: a white and orange cat named Taters, owned by one of the employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Installed on a sofa, the feline plays trying to catch a point of light projected by… a laser.
The high-definition video took just 101 seconds to travel to Earth, after being sent by an instrument on NASA’s Psyche probe, then located some 30 million km away.
The transmission rate was no less than 267 megabits per second, more than that of a traditional internet connection.
The signal was received by the Palomar Observatory in California, which transmitted it live to JPL, in the south of the same US state, where the video was played instantly.
“After receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL via the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal from deep space,” said Ryan Rogalin, involved in the project at NASA.
Videos had already been transmitted via this laser technology from space, but from much closer.
Space missions involve the transmission of an increasingly large volume of data, as the technology they carry improves.
To prepare in particular for sending manned missions to Mars, NASA is seeking to turn to laser communications systems, instead of traditional radio communications.
“Increasing our throughput is essential to achieving our future science and exploration goals,” Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator, said in a statement.
The space agency also claimed to be part of a certain feline tradition: in 1928, an image of the cartoon character “Felix the Cat” was used to carry out a television test.
But from space, Taters will perhaps remain the highest perched cat in history.
