{"id":229807,"date":"2026-03-31T19:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/artemis-ii-crew-will-use-laser-communications-developed-in-massachusetts-on-trip-around-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T19:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:50:11","slug":"artemis-ii-crew-will-use-laser-communications-developed-in-massachusetts-on-trip-around-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/artemis-ii-crew-will-use-laser-communications-developed-in-massachusetts-on-trip-around-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II crew will use laser communications developed in Massachusetts on trip around the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artemis II crew will use laser communications developed in Massachusetts on trip around the moon<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/boston\/news\/lincoln-laboratory-artemis-laser-communications\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-31 19:16:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cbsnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The countdown is on for Artemis II and its crew’s historic liftoff<\/span> Wednesday evening. The mission<\/span> will mark NASA’s first piloted flight to the moon in 53 years.<\/p>\n

Attached to the Orion spacecraft the four astronauts will take around the moon, is a key piece of technology developed over decades in Lexington, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

MIT Lincoln Laboratory<\/h2>\n

Researchers and developers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory designed and built optical communication systems, which use lasers instead of traditional radio frequencies to transmit information.<\/p>\n

“With laser communications, we’re able to deliver a lot more data with a lot less power and with much smaller terminals,” explained Jade Wang, Assistant Group Leader of Optical and Quantum Communications at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Optical communication system designed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

MIT Lincoln Laboratory<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The technology marks a major leap from the RF systems used during the Apollo missions decades ago. Researchers say those older systems created limits on how much and how reliably data could be sent back to Earth during flight.<\/p>\n

“The in-flight instrumentation is a huge bottleneck [on newer spacecrafts], and without laser communications, all of that data that’s critical to the safety and the health of the astronauts wouldn’t be as readily available,” said Steve Gillmer, Assistant Group Leader of Structural and Thermo-Fluids Engineering at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.<\/p>\n

4K video in space<\/h2>\n

The new system is expected to provide a faster, more seamless flow of critical data, including 4K video upload and download as well as other capabilities. In a sense those grainy videos of the moon from the 60s and 70s will truly be a thing of the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The way I eventually described it to my friends was I was working to make…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artemis II crew will use laser communications developed in Massachusetts on trip around the moon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/03\/31\/a1f94e2d-9f55-4a7b-8fe0-51acacaae655\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/4a6da236a875a27ed6835c943c9a1bcf\/artemis2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101,85],"class_list":["post-229807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-health","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229809,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229807\/revisions\/229809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}