A spacecraft orbiting the moon has been given a super high speed internet connection by NASA and MIT, much faster than most users on Earth, UK MailOnline reported.
Paving the way for 3D videos and remote robotic exploration of other moons and planets, the team admitted that they were stunned by the results of the connection.
The team said their groundbreaking test "worked like gangbusters."
According to UK MailOnline, the test, in October of last year, beamed data, via laser, at speeds reaching 622 megabits per second, to Earth from a spacecraft orbiting the moon.
Radio-frequency systems used for space communications today are usually tens more times slower.
"It worked like gangbusters," Don Boroson, who led the LLCD design team at Lincoln Lab, and presented the demo's results at the SPIE Photonics West conference said.
For about a month, the first-ever two-way laser link between the moon and the Earth was tested by NASA and Lincoln Lab engineers, according to Spectrum IEEE.
"The system did what it needed to do," Boroson said. "The concept is right, and the system is reliable. We think it's ready for prime time."
NASA's follow-up laser communication mission, the Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which is scheduled for launch in 2017, will attempt to establish laser links at a rate of over 1 gigabit per second between Earth and a satellite in geosynchronous orbit (which is ten times closer than the moon), UK MailOnline reported.
In order to demonstrate the reliability of laser communication technology, the LCRD will operate for five years. HD video could, for instance, also allow humans to remotely control machines for tasks such as asteroid mining or building structures on the moon.
For two-way communication, LLCD is NASA's first dedicated system which uses laser instead of radio waves.
"The goal of the LLCD experiment is to validate and build confidence in this technology so that future missions will consider using it," said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager.
"We can even envision such a laser-based system enabling a robotic mission to an asteroid," he added. "It could have 3D, high-definition video signals transmitted to Earth providing essentially 'telepresence' to a human controller on the ground."
Radio frequency (RF) communication has been the communications platform that has been utilized since NASA first ventured into space. But since the demand for more data capacity keeps increasing, it is now reaching its limit.
According to NASA, laser communication would be less likely to suffer from interference, another limitation of radio frequency (RF) signals.
"LLCD is designed to send six times more data from the moon using a smaller transmitter with 25 per cent less power as compared to the equivalent state-of-the-art radio (RF) system," said Cornwell. "Lasers are also more secure and less susceptible to interference and jamming."
"The LLCD experiment is hosted aboard NASA's LADEE: a 100-day robotic mission designed, built, integrated, tested and will be operated by Ames," UK MailOnline reported. "The LADEE spacecraft will take 30 days to reach the moon because of its flight path."
UK MailOnline reported, "LLCD will begin operations shortly after arrival into lunar orbit and continue for 30 days afterward. Its main mission objective is to transmit hundreds of millions of bits of data per second from the moon to Earth. This is equivalent to transmitting more than 100 HD television channels simultaneously."
As tens of millions of bits per second are sent from Earth to the spacecraft, LLCD receiving capability will also be tested.
To receive and transmit LLCD signals, there is a primary ground terminal at NASA's White Sands Complex in New Mexico, UK MailOnline reported.
"An MIT team designed, built, and tested the terminal," according to UK MailOnline. "They also will be responsible for LLCD's operation at that site. There are two alternate sites, one located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which is for receiving only."
The other is being provided by the European Space Agency on the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of Africa. It will have two-way communication capability with LLCD.
"Having several sites gives us alternatives which greatly reduces the possibility of interference from clouds," said Cornwell.
This technology is even more exciting for communications beyond Earth's orbit, NASA engineers said.
In the past, NASA has experimented with sending low amounts of individual pulses to cameras on far-away space probes near Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury, UK MailOnline reported.
Recently, an image of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, the Mona Lisa, was transmitted to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft orbiting the moon.
"But this was done at only hundreds of data bits per second," said Cornwell. "LLCD will be the first dedicated optical communication system and will send data millions of times faster.
