Chinese researchers have successfully established a two-way high-speed laser communication link across 400,000 kilometers between the Earth and the Moon, transitioning deep-space optical communication from near-Earth orbit to lunar distances.

Overcoming extreme alignment challenges likened to threading a needle over thousands of miles the team developed tracking systems and photon-sensitive detectors to process weak signals through space noise.

The link reached uplink speeds of 1.25 Mbps and downlink speeds of 100 Mbps, enabling an 8K high-definition lunar image to transmit in just 12 seconds compared to minutes over conventional microwave. This technology will support future manned lunar missions and deep-space exploration.

Source: People’s Daily