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"Lasers require a lot of power." This statement is meaningless as written. You can emit as much or as little with a laser as you like. You could say "a lot of
by jhugo 4y ago
"Lasers require a lot of power."
This statement is meaningless as written. You can emit as much or as little with a laser as you like. You could say "a lot of power is required for a reliable inter-satellite optical link", to which I would say "citation needed".
Iridium has been doing inter-satellite links since the late 90s and moving from RF to optical doesn't change the game that much.
- shaklee3 4y agoiridium rates compared to SpaceX are not comparable and not the same technology
- jhugo 4y agoThe data rate has very little to do with the complexity of the satellite-to-satellite links, and steering RF and optics isn't as different as you might think.
- shaklee3 4y agothat's partially true. the data rates have a lot to do with frequency reuse, which means more complicated designs. starlink is complicated in the dynamic conditions, but the beamforming is relatively simple.