NASA, Australia Team Up for Artemis II Lunar Laser Communications Test

An artist’s con­cept of NASA’s Ori­on space­craft orbit­ing the Moon while using laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy through the Ori­on Artemis II Opti­cal Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sys­tem.

Cred­it: NASA/Dave Ryan

As NASA pre­pares for its Artemis II mis­sion, researchers at the agency’s Glenn Research Cen­ter in Cleve­land are col­lab­o­rat­ing with The Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty (ANU) to prove inven­tive, cost-sav­ing laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies in the lunar envi­ron­ment.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing in space usu­al­ly relies on radio waves, but NASA is explor­ing laser, or opti­cal, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which can send data 10 to 100 times faster to the ground. Instead of radio sig­nals, these sys­tems use infrared light to trans­mit high-def­i­n­i­tion video, pic­ture, voice, and sci­ence data across vast dis­tances in less time. NASA has proven laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions dur­ing pre­vi­ous tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tions, but Artemis II will be the first crewed mis­sion to attempt using lasers to trans­mit data from deep space.

To sup­port this effort, researchers work­ing on the agency’s Real Time Opti­cal Receiv­er (Real­TOR) project have devel­oped a cost-effec­tive laser trans­ceiv­er using com­mer­cial-off-the-shelf parts. Ear­li­er this year, NASA Glenn engi­neers built and test­ed a repli­ca of the sys­tem at the center’s Aero­space Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Facil­i­ty, and they are now work­ing with ANU to build a sys­tem with the same hard­ware mod­els to pre­pare for the university’s Artemis II laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions demo.

Australia’s upcom­ing lunar exper­i­ment could show­case the capa­bil­i­ty, afford­abil­i­ty, and repro­ducibil­i­ty of the deep space receiv­er engi­neered by Glenn,” said Jen­nifer Downey, co-prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor for the Real­TOR project at NASA Glenn. “It’s an impor­tant step in prov­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using com­mer­cial parts to devel­op acces­si­ble tech­nolo­gies for sus­tain­able explo­ration beyond Earth.”

Dur­ing Artemis II, which is sched­uled for ear­ly 2026, NASA will fly an opti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem aboard the Ori­on space­craft, which will test using lasers to send data across the cos­mos. Dur­ing the mis­sion, NASA will attempt to trans­mit record­ed 4K ultra-high-def­i­n­i­tion video, flight pro­ce­dures, pic­tures, sci­ence data, and voice com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Moon to Earth.

An artist’s con­cept of the opti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions ground sta­tion at Mount Strom­lo Obser­va­to­ry in Can­ber­ra, Aus­tralia, using laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy.

Cred­it: The Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty

Near­ly 10,000 miles from Cleve­land, ANU researchers work­ing at the Mount Strom­lo Obser­va­to­ry ground sta­tion hope to receive data dur­ing Orion’s jour­ney around the Moon using the Glenn-devel­oped trans­ceiv­er mod­el. This ground sta­tion will serve as a test loca­tion for the new trans­ceiv­er design and will not be one of the mission’s pri­ma­ry ground sta­tions. If the test is suc­cess­ful, it will prove that com­mer­cial parts can be used to build afford­able, scal­able space com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems for future mis­sions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

“Engag­ing with The Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty to expand com­mer­cial laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions offer­ings across the world will fur­ther demon­strate how this advanced satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions capa­bil­i­ty is ready to sup­port the agency’s net­works and mis­sions as we set our sights on deep space explo­ration,” said Marie Piasec­ki, tech­nol­o­gy port­fo­lio man­ag­er for NASA’s Space Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion (SCaN) Pro­gram.

As NASA con­tin­ues to inves­ti­gate the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using com­mer­cial parts to engi­neer ground sta­tions, Glenn researchers will con­tin­ue to pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port in prepa­ra­tion for Australia’s demon­stra­tion.

Strong glob­al part­ner­ships advance tech­nol­o­gy break­throughs and are instru­men­tal as NASA expands humanity’s reach from the Moon to Mars, while fuel­ing inno­va­tions that improve life on Earth. Through Artemis, NASA will send astro­nauts to explore the Moon for sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery, eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, and build the foun­da­tion for the first crewed mis­sions to Mars.

The Real­TOR project is one aspect of the opti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions port­fo­lio with­in NASA’s SCaN Pro­gram, which includes demon­stra­tions and in-space exper­i­ment plat­forms to test the via­bil­i­ty of infrared light for send­ing data to and from space. These include the LCOT (Low-Cost Opti­cal Ter­mi­nal) project, the Laser Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Relay Demon­stra­tion, and more. NASA Glenn man­ages the project under the direc­tion of agency’s SCaN Pro­gram at NASA Head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton.

The Aus­tralian Nation­al University’s demon­stra­tion is sup­port­ed by the Aus­tralian Space Agency Moon to Mars Demon­stra­tor Mis­sion Grant pro­gram, which has facil­i­tat­ed oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ty for the Aus­tralian Deep Space Opti­cal Ground Sta­tion Net­work.