Cats are not known for working in deep space.

Nor are they the type to be impressed with their viral fame, no matter how many kudos they get.

So when Taters, an orange tabby, got his chance to help with a NASA experiment, his enthusiasm for the job was lukewarm at best.

But scientists were ecstatic when a video clip of Taters was sent from a spacecraft back to Earth, marking what NASA said was a milestone in advancing our ability to communicate when outside of Earth’s orbit. Something that would be necessary, they said, if we land astronauts on Mars, some day.

The cat, who belongs to a NASA employee, was filmed playing with a laser pointer which was a subtle nod to the laser technology being used to send the outer space message.

NASA, along with Psyche, will send more transmissions over the next 2 years as the spacecraft moves farther away from Earth.

A transceiver on NASA’s Psyche used laser technology to stream a video from deep space to Earth for the first time ever on Dec. 11 in a “historic milestone.” Image by NASA

“What we’ve done is taken this technology that’s been used in satellites orbiting near-Earth and around the moon … and extended that range out to deep space,” said Malcolm Wright, flight laser lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

This demonstration we just did … is really showing the ability of the technology.”

Eventually in mid-2024, Wright said, the video transmission will reach the distance of Mars.

NASA said that this experiment is being prepped for the next mission to the moon. The new technology, they believe, will drastically change how NASA can communicate with spacecraft when outside of Earth’s orbit.

The video, which was sent by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications flight laser transceiver and onboard the Psyche, took only 101 seconds to reach Earth, NASA said.

“The biggest thing now is to show the reliability and the robustness,” Wright said. “So it’s not just a novelty, a one-off, but it can be a workhorse. We want to show the capability.”

After the signal was sent, it was received at the Hale Telescope at the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory. Employees there downloaded it and sent it to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the video was played.

When the message was received, Wright said, the excitement was huge.

“You think of everything that can go wrong beforehand. … [Then] you’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, it all works,’” he said. “It makes all the years of work and effort worth it.”

Members of NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications team react to the first high-definition streaming video to be sent via laser to Earth on Dec. 11 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Photo by NASA

Three-year-old Taters is owned by Joby Harris and works on NASA’s laboratory’s design team. The team wanted to come up with a fun video, Harris said.

Once they had decided to use a cat chasing a laser since the mission involved lasers, Harris said he uploaded a clip of his cat as a placeholder. But his team “kept coming back to it, how charming and simple it was,” he said.

To make a high-quality video, Harris put up lights and cameras in a room at home and got his cat’s laser pointer ready.

The cat, a diva, wanted no part in it, Harris said.

“He knew something was up,” he said.

I tried for an hour to just get him to play.”

Giving up, Harris said he went to sit in the living room where the aggrieved Taters was relaxing. Realizing this could be the moment, he pulled out his phone and Harris started shining the laser.

And Taters “went crazy with the laser pointer.”

“Communicating via light is pretty complex, but how do you get people talking about it? You just get people talking about things that they normally talk about,” Harris said. “Art is simply … building bridges of complex things to as many people as possible — and I can’t think of anything that would do that more than, perhaps, cats.”

When asked how Taters was handling his newfound fame, Harris smiled.

“He would call himself a laser beam motion analyst,” said Harris. “I think he’s just happy to help out.”

Watch below to see Taters in action.

Sources: Washington Post