LCRD will replace radio frequency to send data with an increased bandwidth that is 10 to 100 times higher than the long existing radio waves.
Principal Investigator David Israel at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a release said, LCRD will demonstrate how to use laser systems for space communications and soon will be able to implement lasers on more missions as a standard means of communications.
While radio waves take 9 weeks to send a complete map of Mars to Earth space center with a laser it can be done in 9 days, said NASA.
The communication capabilities of LCRD will be tested for two years and the test data will be sent through radio waves while the LCRD will reply using optical signals.