Whoosh 🚀 In this twenty-second exposure, a ULALaunch Atlas V rocket launches on the DeptOfDefense Space Test Program 3 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Dec. 7, 2021. The Space Test Program Satellite-6 spacecraft hosts NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) and a NASA-USNavy Research Laboratory space weather payload. LCRD will demonstrate NASA's first two-way laser relay communications system, sending and receiving data over invisible infrared lasers, which can enable data rates 10 to 100 times greater than radio frequency systems traditionally used by spacecraft. LCRD will send and receive data at a rate of 1.2 gigabits per second from geosynchronous orbit to Earth. At that speed, you could download a movie in under a minute. LCRD will transmit and receive data from its location in geosynchronous orbit – about 22,000 miles (35,400 km) above Earth – with ground stations in California and Hawaii. LCRD will spend two years conducting experiments, inc...