3 ms·
How does laser communication work with a moving object with 9DoF?!
by brcmthrowaway 7mo ago
How does laser communication work with a moving object with 9DoF?!
- sbarre 7mo agoApparently with a gimbal and some fast-moving mirrors. https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/lincoln-laboratory-laser-communications-terminal-launches-historic-artemis-ii-moon-mission https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/lincoln-laboratory-laser-communi...
- beloch 7mo agoIt also helps that laser beams diverge. By the time it gets back to Earth, the diameter of the beam from Artemis is probably several hundred meters, if not several kilometres. Their aim still needs to be fairly precise, but they're not trying to hit a lens with a beam that's still the width of a pencil. They really just need to paint the neighbourhood that NASA's sensors are located in.
- groby_b 7mo ago6 km ([slide show](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20250009875/downloads/Optical%20Comm%20for%20Artemis%20II%20Crewed%20Mission.pdf?attachment=true https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20250009875/downloads/Op...) with data points and the worst slides government agencies were able to create)
- kotaKat 7mo agoJust like this, a Starlink gimbal being tested for future third party laser comms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpFfC9WY0qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpFfC9WY0qs
- brcmthrowaway 7mo agoDoesnt look very precise.
- functional_dev 7mo agoI was wondering about this too! I did not know how they can aim a laser from so far at a moving spaceship. I generated this visual map about to help me understand it - https://vectree.io/c/aiming-space-lasers-gimbals-and-beam-divergence https://vectree.io/c/aiming-space-lasers-gimbals-and-beam-di...