In a groundbreaking achievement for deep space communication, NASA has successfully beamed a 15-second ultra-high definition video of a cat named Taters back to Earth from nearly 19 million miles away. The video was transmitted as part of an experiment for NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications, with the goal of demonstrating the ability to stream high-bandwidth video and other data from deep space. This technology will be crucial for future human missions beyond Earth's orbit.

Taters, an orange tabby cat owned by a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employee, became the star of the video as he chased a red laser light. The video was uploaded to NASA's Psyche asteroid probe, which is currently on a six-year, 2.2-billion-mile journey to a rare, metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The video transmission took place on December 11 as the spacecraft headed towards its destination.

To transmit the video, NASA used a flight laser transceiver to beam an encoded near-infrared laser from Psyche to the Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. The transmission distance, which is about 80 times the distance between Earth and the moon, was covered in just 101 seconds. The video was then downloaded and sent frame by frame to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where it was played in real time.

Despite the vast distance, the video reached Earth faster than most broadband internet connections. Ryan Rogalin, the project's receiver electronics lead at JPL, emphasized the significance of this achievement in improving communication capabilities from deep space. NASA aims to transmit data at rates up to 100 times greater than the current radio systems used by spacecraft far from Earth.

NASA views this successful transmission as a historic milestone and a crucial step towards future space exploration. The ability to communicate at higher data rates from deep space will be essential for sending humans to Mars and achieving future exploration and science goals. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy expressed excitement about the advancements in optical communications and the transformation it will bring to interplanetary missions.

While Taters stole the show in this first video transmission from deep space, JPL has confirmed that he will not be making any more appearances. Joby Harris, an art director in JPL's DesignLab and Taters' owner, celebrated the cat's newfound celebrity but wants to ensure he remains grounded. This achievement in deep space communication was made possible by NASA's commitment to advancing optical communications, with the support of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group.