The laser-based system transferred 3.6 terabytes in six minutes, which is roughly equivalent to one million songs.
"Achieving 100 Gbps in June was groundbreaking, and now we’ve doubled that data rate – this capability will change the way we communicate in space," Beth Keer, the mission manager for TBIRD at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, explained in NASA's statement.To date, NASA has mainly relied on its Deep Space Network, which utilizes radio waves to send and receive information via satellites and spacecraft.
The TBIRD system was launched into space in May last year aboard SpaceX's Transporter-5 rideshare mission, atop a Falcon 9 rocket.Roughly a month later, in June 2022, the system made its first breakthrough by transmitting 100 Gbps during a flyover of its ground station, which it passes over twice a day.
"Just imagine the power of space science instruments when they can be designed to fully take advantage of the advancements in detector speeds and sensitivities, furthering what artificial intelligence can do with huge amounts of data," Keer continued. "Laser communications is the missing link that will enable the science discoveries of the future."
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