Taters the Cat Takes Center Stage in Groundbreaking Ultra-HD Video from Deep Space

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has achieved another historic communications milestone, making cat video history in the process. The onboard Deep Space Optical Communications array’s flight laser transceiver sent an “ultra-high definition” video clip approximately 19 million miles back to Earth—a new record not just for transmission, but for cat videos, as well.

According to NASA’s December 18 announcement, Psyche sent an encoded near-infrared laser beam to Earth last week at its maximum bandwidth speed of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) while en route to the space probe’s final destination, a metal-heavy asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter. Roughly 101 seconds later, the video frames were received and played in real-time, featuring an orange tabby cat named Taters chasing a red laser pointer across a couch while chilled out music plays in the background.

The video clip’s main character is an ode to some of the very first television test broadcast transmissions. It showcased Taters, a sizable orange tabby named, and paid homage to the long lineage of cats in telecommunications, with overlaid graphics also displaying information about Taters alongside technical project details.

Even across millions of miles of space, the demonstration reportedly holds up to some of the best internet download rates here on Earth.

“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, [Psyche] was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” Ryan Rogalin, JPL’s receiver electronics lead for the project, explained on Monday.

Thanks to this and future Psyche laser system testing, NASA plans to ready astronauts’ communications arrays for longterm voyages to the moon and Mars.

“Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said in the agency’s December 18 announcement.

For now, however, Taters takes center stage—although the video’s focal point wasn’t only a callback television’s very first test broadcasts.

“Today, cat videos and memes are some of the most popular content online,” reads NASA’s announcement,

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