This represents a significant milestone for the project by showing how optical communications can interface with a spacecraft's radio frequency comms system, Meera Srinivasan, the project's operations lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement.
NASA wanted to show the potential for laser communications to be conducted across interstellar distances, allowing for high bandwidth and a much speedier connection - from 10 to 100 times faster than what's available today - between humans and the probes they send into space.
This achievement was particularly significant as, along with sending the laser message a record-breaking distance, NASA also managed to transmit actual data gathered from the spacecraft.
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