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On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 captured

the historic photo known as “Earthrise”.

However, it would take several days for the rest of the world to

see this awe-inspiring image.

Today, NASA has the capability to send hundreds of

“earthrise” like photos from the moon every second using lasers.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment

Explorer, or LADEE, will

investigate the Moon’s fragile atmosphere to enhance our knowledge of

Earth’s nearest neighbor.

LLCD, the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration, will hitch

a ride aboard LADEE to lunar orbit.

Using a small and lightweight telescope, LLCD will

transmit hundreds of millions of laser pulses each second to

one of three stations on the Earth….. Each of which was chosen

for it’s cloud-free skies.

To begin data transmission, the space and ground terminals

must first locate each other. This process begins

when the ground terminal scans LADEE’s path to

illuminate the spacecraft. LLCD senses the flash

from the ground and points its beam back to the source.

The ground terminal acquires the beam from

space and establishes a communication link.

With contact established and alignment locked,

hundreds of millions of data bits begin to flow between the two

terminals every second.

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Back on Earth, the ground terminal receives the laser pulses through an array

of telescopes that focus the weak signals onto

ultra-sensitive detectors. These detectors count the

individual signal photons from the terminal at the Moon,

and turn them into data bits at revolutionary download speeds.

In the future NASA could download finer

images, hundreds of 3-D HD video

streams, and could even one day enable “telepresence”

at the Moon and beyond for human explorers still on Earth.

Together LLCD and LADEE

will take the next step in expanding

NASA’s space communication capabilities while renewing

our sense of discovery about the Moon and the universe.

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