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China’s 2026 moon laser communication speed is slower than Nasa’s in 2013
🇨🇳 China /Technology

China’s 2026 moon laser communication speed is slower than Nasa’s in 2013

From South China Morning Post · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • China has completed two-way laser communication between Earth and the moon, becoming the second country after the United States to achieve it.
  • The experiment recorded a 100 Mbps downlink and a 1.25 Mbps uplink, below NASA’s 2013 demonstration rates of 622 Mbps and 20 Mbps.
  • Space experts said the experiments appeared comparable but could not explain the gap in performance.

China has achieved two-way laser communication between Earth and the moon, but its speeds remain well below those recorded by NASA more than a decade ago.

Using telescopes in Yunnan province and an experimental satellite now orbiting the moon after a launch mishap in 2024, the Chinese Academy of Sciences team recorded a downlink speed of 100 megabits per second and an uplink speed of 1.25 Mbps.

NASA’s 2013 lunar laser communications demonstration reached 622 Mbps for downloads and 20 Mbps for uploads, roughly six times faster downlink and 16 times faster uplink. Space historian and former Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell said the Chinese and U.S. experiments were comparable, but he did not know what accounted for the difference.

Yang Lei, who led the research team and specializes in deep-space laser communications, highlighted laser’s speed advantage over other communication methods in an interview with Xinhua.

It sounds like China has not yet reached the data rates the US can achieve.

— Jonathan McDowellThe space historian compared the reported Chinese results with NASA’s earlier demonstration.
About this summary

Originally published by South China Morning Post. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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