From what I heard at ESA projects (not being directly involved) the L-band seems to be able to penetrate clouds and static charges in the atmosphere, whereas hi

From what I heard at ESA projects (not being directly involved) the L-band seems to be able to penetrate clouds and static charges in the atmosphere, whereas higher frequencies like the Ku-Band (12-18Ghz) tend to collide too much with rainy clouds and droplets in the air. That's why I was assuming that higher frequencies than the Ku Band will likely lead to more signal degradation on the way. I also don't have any calculations or plots in my head for the minima and maxima, so I could be totally wrong about this :D 120Ghz is quite amazing as an achievement though. They probably used a wider band and multiple channels, I would assume? edit: looked up a little on K (18-27Ghz) and Ka band (26.5-40Ghz), but both seem to be still unfeasible for long range communications.