AIMing a light across millions of kilometres

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ESA’s planetary defence test set for 2020

13 October 2015 Imagine beaming a light across millions of kilometres of empty space, all the way back to Earth. ESA’s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission is intended to do just that: demonstrate laser communications across an unprecedented void.

The Asteroid Impact Mission, or AIM, undergoing detailed design ahead of a final go/no-go decision by ESA’s Ministerial Council in December 2016, is a deep-space technology-demonstration mission that would also be humanity’s first probe to a double asteroid.

Among its innovative technologies, laser communications would return results to scientists several times faster than standard radio signals.

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