Interplanetary broadband

Laser reception improved. Thank the Swedes.

Best I can tell, this allows focused-light transmission to compete with radio. Both suck at interplanetary distances. But with this new receiver, optical transmission doesn't lose data. Also the optical receiver doesn't have to be chilled to single-digit Kelvins. The radio transmitter is, thus, rendered obsolete.

All this improves the ability of space probes to update their software. Also - since we can receive data faster too - the probes can get their data off their hard-drives faster. That reduces the amount of storage hardware the probe needs to schlep off Earth. Or to float over Venus if you're me.

I am less sure about planetside surface rovers. They're lightweight. I suppose rovers might beam their data over to the lander which sent them, which does the grunt work of sending data to Earth. But the whole point of a rover is that it, well, roves. Can they carry a caster and/or a receiver like this? I doubt it.