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  • Projector Sound

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  • On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 captured

  • the historic photo known asEarthrise”.

  • However, it would take several days for the rest of the world to

  • see this awe-inspiring image.

  • Today, NASA has the capability to send hundreds of

  • earthriselike photos from the moon every second using lasers.

  • The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment

  • Explorer, or LADEE, will

  • investigate the Moon’s fragile atmosphere to enhance our knowledge of

  • Earth’s nearest neighbor.

  • LLCD, the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration, will hitch

  • a ride aboard LADEE to lunar orbit.

  • Using a small and lightweight telescope, LLCD will

  • transmit hundreds of millions of laser pulses each second to

  • one of three stations on the Earth….. Each of which was chosen

  • for it’s cloud-free skies.

  • To begin data transmission, the space and ground terminals

  • must first locate each other. This process begins

  • when the ground terminal scans LADEE’s path to

  • illuminate the spacecraft. LLCD senses the flash

  • from the ground and points its beam back to the source.

  • The ground terminal acquires the beam from

  • space and establishes a communication link.

  • With contact established and alignment locked,

  • hundreds of millions of data bits begin to flow between the two

  • terminals every second.

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  • Back on Earth, the ground terminal receives the laser pulses through an array

  • of telescopes that focus the weak signals onto

  • ultra-sensitive detectors. These detectors count the

  • individual signal photons from the terminal at the Moon,

  • and turn them into data bits at revolutionary download speeds.

  • In the future NASA could download finer

  • images, hundreds of 3-D HD video

  • streams, and could even one day enabletelepresence

  • at the Moon and beyond for human explorers still on Earth.

  • Together LLCD and LADEE

  • will take the next step in expanding

  • NASA’s space communication capabilities while renewing

  • our sense of discovery about the Moon and the universe.

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