China's CGST announces 100 Gbps space-ground laser transmission
CHANGCHUN, China - The race to establish satellite-to-ground laser communications is heating up. Recently, China achieved a major milestone, which puts it ahead of Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The nation successfully attained a 100 gigabit per second data transmission rate in satellite-to-ground laser communication. This unprecedented speed — ten times faster than their previous record — opens doors to a new era of space-based technologies, Mrigakshi Dixit writes for Interesting Engineering. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
7 January 2025 - The South China Morning Post reports that Chang Guang Satellite Technology achieved the speed between a satellite and a mobile truck-based ground station.
“Musk’s Starlink has revealed its laser inter-satellite communication system but hasn’t deployed laser satellite-to-ground communication yet. We think they might have the technology, but we’ve already started large-scale deployment,” Wang Hanghang, the company’s head of laser communication ground station technology, told SCMP. “We plan to deploy these laser communication units across all satellites in the Jilin-1 constellation to improve their efficiency, with a goal of networking 300 satellites by 2027.”
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Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics