Laser pulse communications used in space

FCW:
NASA's Deep Space Network has used radio frequency communications for more than four decades to support space exploration, but the agency believes lasers could be the next giant leap forward in communications.

NASA announced Oct. 23 that its Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) system successfully used a pulsed laser beam to transmit data 239,000 miles between Earth and the moon and easily achieved the fastest download rate ever transmitted in space -- 622 megabits per second (Mbps).

LLCD, hosted aboard the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer that NASA launched in September, is a short-term experiment and precursor to a larger mission called the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration set to launch in 2016. LCRD will consist of two optical communications terminals that can forward and store data via laser communications at up to 1.25 gigabits per second coded and 2.88 Gbps uncoded.

NASA's first effort at using laser beams instead of radio waves for two-way communication successfully transmitted data at high rates of speed and accuracy and demonstrated error-free data upload rates of 20 Mbps.
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There is more.

This is an important innovation that could have significant military applications too.  It has the potential of being a more secure communication channel, at least until adversaries figure out how to replicate it.  I think it is a big deal.

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