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NASA Probe Blasts 461 Gigabytes of Moon Data Daily
coondoggie writes "On its current space scouting mission, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is using a pumped up communications device to deliver 461 gigabytes of data and images per day, at a rate of up to 100 Mbps.
As the first high data rate K-band transmitter to fly on a NASA spacecraft, the 13-inch-long tube, called a Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier, is making it possible for NASA scientists to receive massive amounts of images and data about the moon's surface and environment.
The amplifier was built by L-3 Communications Electron Technologies in conjunction with NASA's Glenn Research Center. The device uses electrodes in a vacuum tube to amplify microwave signals to high power. It's ideal for sending large amounts of data over a long distance because it provides more power and more efficiency than its alternative, the transistor amplifier, NASA stated." It kills me that the moon has better bandwidth than my house.
Or would you like your internet connection to be served by a SUV carrying hard drives?
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a fedex truck packed with 250 lbs of hard disks!
Depending on the file size of what you would be downloading and with what technology, overnight shipping might STILL be better latency too!
Also, I'm almost sure he could get a 100 Mbps link to his house if he was willing to pay what NASA is paying for theirs. At least I don't think it would be much more expensive.
Of course not, twats have been around for millions of years.
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CmdTaco comments in the original posting:
It kills me that the moon has better bandwidth than my house.
I know that Taco's trying to be funny here, but, seriously, the moon should most certainly have better bandwidth. That is to say, a research project that is able to afford a custom solution to a highly specialized problem with plenty of money to throw at had damned well better have better performance than what is available to commodity markets. I expect this to be true just as nearly every other bit of the hardware they send up will be better, faster, stronger, lighter, and more able to withstand ionizing radiation than the equivalent, when available, from K-Mart. There's a good reason these projects cost hundreds of millions of dollars for a probe to be sent somewhere. The Mars rovers, as another example, are using a 256 kbps channel -- deployed five years ago when DSL was still considered fast -- over a distance that ranges 55 to 400 million miles. Now *that's* performance.
It actually rather amazes me that Taco's or anyone else's house has close to the bandwidth available from the moon.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
no because they always have kicked the arse of a transistor.
Show me a 10,000 watt transistor.. Oh wait, you haveto use a Tube for that kind of power....
Tubes have kicked the Transistors butt forever when you need high power comms.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
the point is that before you read it, did you know there was a TWT orbiting the moon withh 100Mbps bandwidth transferring over 400GB of data a day? if not, then you learned something new.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
Since it's orbiting I expect that it has a blackout period similar to that encountered by the Apollo spacecraft. Makes sense that it would have as fast a link as possible to offload data before the next blackout period.
My question is why you need a vacuum tube in a vacuum? Just put the parts out in open space, save a bit of weight, no problem with the tube getting deposits on it over time, or thermal expansion and contraction stressing the tube, etc.
Not only that, space is an imperfect vacuum, meaning it has junk in it.
but for high power, squirrelly conditions, and reliability under real world conditions, tubes are still the go-to player in a lot of situations. a solar storm will roach semiconductor outputs, but it takes a monster pulse straight down the gullet to take a tube out.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?