How Artemis II is beaming back stunning video from the moon

A new laser system aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft is sending sharper video and more data back to Earth.
April 5, 2026
Scientific American
An artist visualizes a laser communications terminal ending data over infrared light links.
An artist's visualization of the Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System (O2O) laser communications terminal sending data over infrared light links. Dave Ryan/NASA

NASA has launched four astronauts on a pioneering journey around the moon—the Artemis II mission. Follow our coverage here.

As the Artemis II mission heads for a flyby of the moon, the Orion crew module is testing one of NASA's most ambitious upgrades to space communications yet: a laser-based system called O2O. Short for Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System, O2O caps more than two decades of work by NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory to build better high-bandwidth links for deep space. The system is designed to send data down to Earth at up to 260 megabits per second—far higher than the radio links earlier missions relied on. Scientific American spoke with some of the system's developers about how it works.