E259 - Artemis 2 Laser Comms, Exoplanets Near Black Holes, Japan's Moon Transformer & H3 Rocket Return

On this episode of Kalam Astro, we're covering one of the most historic moments in recent space exploration, a stunning planetary discovery, a robot straight out of science fiction, and a major comeback story from Japan's space program.

We open with a story that feels almost magical — how laser technology kept NASA's Artemis 2 astronauts connected to the world during their epic journey around the Moon. We explore the cutting-edge optical communications system that made it possible to beam data, voice, and video across the vast distance between Earth and our nearest celestial neighbour, and what th...