Psyche asteroid probe uses lasers to phone home from 218 million miles away

The purple and blue night skies glow over an observatory that shoots faint light beams across the sky.

Final tests of NASA's laser beam communication technology offer a promising new way to keep in touch with astronauts and spacecraft venturing into deep space, including future missions to Mars.

NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, a technology demonstration carried aboard the Psyche mission, has completed its 65th and final test, successfully exchanging laser signals across 218 million miles (351 million kilometers), surpassing all technical goals after two years of operations, according to a statement from the space agency.