CACI International Inc. announced the delivery of a flight model laser communications transmitter to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for use on-board the Psyche spacecraft, whose mission study the origin of planetary cores in the asteroid belt. Laser communications, the next-generation space communications technology, can transmit data over long distances at rates up to 100 times faster than traditional radio frequency systems. The laser communications transmitter for the Psyche spacecraft is a key component of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package that is designed to transmit data in photon packets from the asteroid belt back to earth, a distance of nearly 200 million miles. The spacecraft will visit the Psyche asteroid, which according to NASA, is unique because it appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of its solar system. In November 2020, CACI delivered an engineering model of the laser communication transmitter to JPL, having passed space qualification testing. To pass space qualification testing, CACI engineers demonstrated the transmitter could withstand both space launch and flight.