![SpaceX's CRS-29 Dragon launches atop a Falcon 9 toward the International Space Station. Credit: NASA](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53320746552_61d1d9b0fa_o.jpg)
SpaceX’s CRS-29 Dragon launches atop a Falcon 9 toward the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
SpaceX’s autonomous CRS-29 cargo Dragon is on its solution to resupply the International Space Station and its seven-person Expedition 70 crew.
Liftoff atop a Falcon 9 rocket occurred at 8:28 p.m. EST Nov. 9 (01:28 UTC Nov. 10) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That is the twenty ninth cargo Dragon mission for NASA by SpaceX under the Business Resupply Services program.
![The ILLUMA-T payload in a cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/illuma-t-655x429.jpg)
The ILLUMA-T payload in a cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA
Aboard is a few 6,500 kilos (2,900 kilograms) of cargo sure for the orbiting laboratory. It’s set to dock with the ISS at around 5:20 a.m. EST (10:20 UTC) Nov. 11 following a 34-hour rendezvous profile. The spacecraft is anticipated to dock with the forward port of the Harmony module where it should remain for a couple of month.
The inbound cargo includes crew supplies, experiments and technology demonstrations, including NASA’s ILLUMA-T, which stands for Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low-Earth-Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal.
In response to NASA, ILLUMA-T is hardware that the agency is using to check high data rate laser communications from the ISS to Earth via the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, or LCRD, which is a payload attached to a U.S. Department of Defense satellite called STPSat-6 that was launched in December of 2021.
LCRD transmits data to one in all two ground stations, either Table Mountain, California, or Haleakalā, Hawaii. When ILLUMA-T is installed on the outside of the space station, it should send data via infrared lasers to LCRD, which is able to then relay to one in all the bottom stations.
NASA currently relies on various radio frequencies to transmit data, something that has been done for the reason that starting of the space age. Laser communications allow for more data, images and video to be sent in the course of the same transmission. Consider it just like the difference between dial-up and broadband for the web.
Moreover, the hardware requires precise aiming in addition to minimal cloud coverage, but can also be lighter and uses less power. NASA plans additional demonstrations with this technology, including one that can fly with the crewed Artemis 2 mission across the Moon in late 2024 or early 2025.