A Laser Beacon to Space: Deep Space Optical Communications | NASA/JPL

A Laser Beacon to Space: Deep Space Optical Communications | NASA/JPL

In these photographs taken on June 2, 2025, the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California, beams its eight-laser beacon to the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) flight laser transceiver aboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. At the time, when Psyche was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth.

Managed by JPL, DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the demonstration completed its 65th and final “pass” on Sept. 2, 2025, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal from 218 million miles (350 million kilometers) away.

Image Description: A faint beam stretches up and to the left from the open dome of a laboratory into the sky. The building and surrounding trees are mostly in shadow. The sky is a deep blue with multicolored stars visible; the bottom of the sky where it meets the landscape fades from blue to pink.

For more information about the laser communications demo, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/dsoc

NASA's Psyche Mission:

https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Text Credit: Ian J. O’Neill
Release Date: Sept. 19, 2025

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