WASHINGTON: Nasa on Monday announced it had used a state-of-the-art laser communication system on a spaceship 31 million kilometers from Earth — to send a high-definition cat video.

- NASA used a laser communication system on a spaceship 31 million kilometers from Earth.

- Sent a 15-second high-definition cat video from deep space featuring an orange tabby named Taters.

- Demonstrates the capability to transmit higher-data-rate communications for complex missions like sending humans to Mars.


- Video transmitted from the Psyche probe, currently journeying to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

- Spaceship was 80 times the distance between Earth and the Moon when the video was sent.

- Encoded near-infrared signal received by the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory.

- Signal then sent to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

- Goal is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles.

- Traditional space missions use radio waves, but lasers can increase data rate by 10 to 100 times.

- Ultra-HD video took 101 seconds to send at a maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second, faster than most home broadband connections.