&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;The Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), which is part of the JPL Phaeton early career employee hands-on training program, aims to demonstrate optical communications technology. This is accomplished by transferring a video from hardware onboard the ISS to our ground receiver at JPL&amp;rsquo;s Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) in Wrightwood, California. To aid the ISS investigation in accurately pointing the downlink laser to the ground telescope, a laser beacon is transmitted from the OCTL to the ISS investigation, which is tracked by the investigation as the ISS travels across the sky. Each demonstration lasts for approximately two minutes during which the ISS and ground telescope maintain line of sight. The OPALS instrumentation gathers technical data during these demonstrations, which is then studied to determine hardware performance, with the goal of improving the design of next-generation optical communications systems.&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;The scientific instruments in near-Earth and deep space missions increasingly require higher communication rates to transmit acquired data back to Earth, or to support high-data-rate applications (e.g., high-definition video streams). Optical communications (also referred to as lasercomm) is an emerging technology in which the data is modulated onto lasers to transmit the information. Because laser beams are significantly narrower than radio-frequency (RF) beams, optical communications offers the promise of delivering much higher power, and thereby achieving much higher data rates than the state of the art with RF beams. However, because laser beams are very narrow, the spacecraft must be able to very accurately point the laser beam to the receiving telescope on Earth as it travels across the sky, which is one of the primary challenges of lasercomm.&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Optical communications has the promise of meeting the high data rate expectations of future scientific instruments flying on NASAs missions, and improving the interconnectivity between near-Earth assets, such as the ISS, and Earth. OPALS is one of NASAs first demonstrations of an optical communications link from near Earth, and is designed to help chart the path for enabling optical communications in future missions. OPALS collects sensor data during the demonstrations to determine the performance of its laser link. The investigation team plans to use this data to advance the design and performance of future lasercomm links built to support NASAs space endeavors. Additionally, OPALS is used to educate a team of early career employees being trained as the next generation of JPL/NASA employees to develop space-based technologies.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;