NASA Beams Mona Lisa to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the Moon

  • Released Thursday, January 17, 2013
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As part of the first demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the moon, scientists with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the spacecraft from Earth.

The iconic image traveled nearly 240,000 miles in digital form from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) Station at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the spacecraft. By transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses that are routinely sent to track LOLA's position, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and tracking.

To learn more about how it happened, watch the video below!

Learn more about beaming the Mona Lisa to LRO here!

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, January 17, 2013.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:52 PM EDT.

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  • NASA Beams Mona Lisa to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the Moon (ID: 2012117)
    Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 5:00AM
    Produced by - Brendan Antiochos (NASA)