That’s roughly the maximum distance between our planet and Mars.
The record-breaking downlink capped off the first operational phase for DSOC since its launch last October.
The test downlinked nearly 11 terabits during its first phase.
As one might expect, the technology doesn’t work like traditional computer communications.
First, DSOC encodes data into near-infrared laser light.
The high-frequency laser light allows for way more data bandwidth than traditional radio signals.
The data rates will gradually drop off as Psyche continues to its metallic asteroid destination between Mars and Jupiter.
However, laser links still utterly smoke radio systems of comparable power over these vast interplanetary distances.
To test this, the team has been beaming down some wonderfully unusual payloads besides engineering data.
Of course, realistically, colonists will mostly use it for mission-critical communications.
