China’s 2026 moon laser communication speed is slower than Nasa’s in 2013

China has successfully demonstrated two-way laser communication between Earth and the moon, becoming the second nation to achieve this feat after the United States. The project, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, utilized telescopes in Yunnan province and an experimental satellite orbiting the moon. They recorded a downlink speed of 100 megabits per second and an uplink speed of 1.25 megabits per second. These speeds are significantly slower than those achieved by NASA's lunar laser communications demonstration in 2013, which recorded download speeds of 622 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second. This discrepancy has raised questions among space experts.