NASA's Artemis II Moon mission shows space-to-Earth laser comms can scale
By Tim Fernholz
Published on April 22, 2026.
NASA's Artemis II mission, which sent four astronauts to orbit the Moon, used new laser communications systems to transmit images back to Earth. One of the receivers was a low-cost terminal built by the companies Observable Space and Quantum Opus, operated by the Australian National University. The terminal cost less than $5 million, compared to more bespoke solutions that cost tens of millions of dollars. This success demonstrates that high-throughput connections between Earth and space can be done on the cheap. Observable Space CEO Dan Roelker hopes to scale the technology to receive data sent from satellites in a global network.
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