4 ms·
> “Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit. Further, the constellation ensures that frequencies can be reused effectively acro
by elihu 10y ago
> “Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit. Further, the constellation ensures that frequencies can be reused effectively across different satellites to enhance the flexibility and capacity and robustness of the overall system.”
Is optical communication between satellites an existing technology that's already known to work, or is this new? Also, is this sort of thing done (or expected to be done) by aiming laser exactly at the destination satellite, or is it more of a non-directional blink-a-really-bright-LED sort of thing?
- ramidarigaz 10y agoThis[1] article does a nice job of covering the subject, but in essence, laser-based communication between satellites has been done and it works pretty well. [1] http://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles/volume_27/may_2016/features/space-based_laser_communications_break_threshold/ http://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles/volume_27/may_2016/feat...
- elihu 10y agoOk, thanks. From that article it sounds like it's already been done in a number of contexts, but it's still in the "early adopter" stage and isn't really widely used yet.