NASA successfully transmitted laser beam data at 226 million kilometres

The technology developed at NASA provides data transmission speeds 10-100 times faster than current radio frequency systems. On 10 December last year, engineers managed to achieve a transmission speed of 267 Mbps, when the Psyche probe was at a distance of 31 million kilometres from Earth.

The main disadvantage of laser communication is the dependence on weather conditions (the sky must be clear), while slower radio communication depends on them much less. Therefore, laser systems are unlikely to replace traditional radio transmitters in the near future.