"NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration continues to break records."
267 megabits per second at 31 million kilometers, 25 megabits per second at 226 million kilometers (about 1.5x the Earth-Sun distance). Other than saying "near infrared" and done with lasers, they don't say what wavelengths are used or how exactly it's done. I guess they have sensitive photon-counting camera and laser transmitter plugged into a telescope on the spacecraft (called Psyche), and on Earth they have a receiver near JPL that also can send up a "beacon" laser that gives the telescope on the spacecraft something to lock on to.
"NASA's optical communications demonstration has shown that it can transmit test data at a maximum rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) from the flight laser transceiver's near-infrared downlink laser -- a bit rate comparable to broadband internet download speeds."
"That was achieved on Dec. 11, 2023, when the experiment beamed a 15-second ultra-high-definition video to Earth from 19 million miles away (31 million kilometers, or about 80 times the Earth-Moon distance). The video, along with other test data, including digital versions of Arizona State University's Psyche Inspired artwork, had been loaded onto the flight laser transceiver before Psyche launched last year."
"Now that the spacecraft is more than seven times farther away, the rate at which it can send and receive data is reduced, as expected. During the April 8 test, the spacecraft transmitted test data at a maximum rate of 25 Mbps, which far surpasses the project's goal of proving at least 1 Mbps was possible at that distance."
NASA's optical comms demo transmits data over 140 million miles
