Lasers could allow the world to watch Artemis II astronauts travel to the moon and back

The O2O system could send more data to Earth than ever before, NASA says.

Traveling to the moon presents significant communication challenges. Astronauts cannot simply use their cell phones to FaceTime with NASA, and the farther away they are from Earth, the more difficult communication becomes, especially with higher volumes of data.

With an ambitious agenda of future moon missions and a plan to eventually settle humans on the lunar surface, NASA is planning to test a laser-based communications system – the Orion Artemis II Optical Communication System (O2O) – during the upcoming Artemis II mission, which could launch as early as Feb. 6, to see if it can make it easier to connect with the crew and to send and receive data. O2O could also allow the people on Earth to experience that journey alongside the crew. 

Alan Willner, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Southern California, says O2O could shrink the communication gap between astronauts in space and those on Earth. 

“Artemis II is taking a huge step forward in making that third leg, the ability to actually communicate that information at a much higher speed, to keep up with the advances of the needs of the information,” Willner told ABC News. 

Traditionally, spacecraft communications to and from Earth use radio signals, which travel at the speed of light. That means there's a round-trip delay of about three seconds from Earth to the moon and back. However, the bandwidth is limited, meaning the more data that's sent – particularly images and video – the longer it takes to send it.