Chinese company surpasses Starlink in laser data transmission

China achieves new breakthrough in satellite-to-ground laser communications, which could pave the way for 6G networks and many other applications including ultra-high resolution remote sensing and next-generation satellite positioning technology next, MSN reported on January 2. Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company, which owns Jilin-1, the world’s largest sub-meter resolution commercial remote sensing satellite constellation, announced it has achieved a 100-speed image data transmission rate. gigabits per second in testing last week. The new achievement is 10 times faster than the previous record, created by one of 117 satellites in the Jilin-1 constellation and a truck-based ground station.

According to Wang Hanghang, the company’s director of laser communication ground station technology, this development milestone puts Chang Guang’s satellite ahead of SpaceX’s Starlink. “Starlink revealed a laser inter-satellite communication system but has not yet deployed laser communication between satellite and the ground. They may have that technology but we have started deploying it on a large scale. We “I am planning to deploy laser communications in all satellites in the Jilin-1 constellation to improve performance with the goal of connecting 300 satellites by 2027,” Wang said. According to him, the breakthrough will lay the foundation for the effective deployment and operation of China’s satellite infrastructure, including positioning applications, 6G Internet and remote sensing.

While upgrading ground stations is quite high, satellite communications provide wide coverage at low cost, becoming an important direction in 6G development. As satellites have higher resolution, the volume of data they produce increases exponentially, creating an obstacle to the bandwidth of conventional microwave data transmission. Realizing this problem, in early 2020, Chang Guang shifted its focus to laser communication technology, a field that has recorded many notable advances in recent years.

In 2022, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) achieved a laser transmission speed of 100 Gbps, followed by NASA’s TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system also developed by MIT, setting a record of 200 Gbps in 2023. TBIRD system only weighs as much as a box of tissue paper while the Chinese system is larger and heavier with a weight of about 20 kg. Instead of using a fixed observatory, the ground station is placed on a truck, making it portable. This is an option that can lead to many faster applications. The laser communication port developed by Chang Guang is about the size of a backpack and supports both inter-satellite and space data transmission to Earth, placed among the cargo on the satellite launched from Earth in June 2023.

The 02A02 satellite selected for the test was among 41 satellites launched on a rocket into orbit to join the Jilin-1 constellation. On the ground, the arrangement of the laser communication station on the truck helps avoid disruptions in the atmosphere, increasing the reliability and stability of data transmission from space to Earth. Wang said the company is planning to set up multiple data acquisition stations across China to improve the efficiency of remote sensor image data collection. The previous record achieved by the system was a transmission speed of 10 Gbps in October 2023. The team overcame many technical challenges to achieve the latest breakthrough, including atmospheric turbulence, motion errors and precise laser beam detection. The achievement of transmitting 100 Gbps from satellite to ground is equivalent to sending 10 movies in one second.