On April 28th NASA and its partners achieved another major milestone in the future of space communications – achieving 200 gigabit per second (Gbps) throughput on a space-to-ground optical link between a satellite in orbit and Earth, the highest data rate ever achieved by optical communications technology.

These data rates are made possible by using laser communications, which packs information into the oscillations of light waves in lasers, instead of using radio waves like most space communications systems.

This communications link was achieved by the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system, carried into orbit by NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite, and surpasses the previous 100 Gbps milestone previously demonstrated by the same team in June 2022. With this speedy connection, TBIRD can send down multiple terabytes of test data to Earth during a single six-minute pass over a ground station. A single terabyte is the equivalent of about 500 hours of high-definition video.