France’s Defense Innovation Agency (AID) and Cailabs have established high-speed optical satellite communications between a nano-satellite in low orbit and a commercial optical ground station:
The Cailabs ground station “is a white dome that measures around four metres in diameter with a large telescope that sticks out of it.” He explained that the technology lies in the way the light is treated once it’s entered the telescope.
The laser communication terminal aboard the nano-satellite, made by Unseenlabs, another small French company, also is an off-the-shelf product. These terminals “are sold by lots of companies and thanks to the US Space Development Agency, they are all required to be interoperable,” Morizur explained.
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The French experiment was launched at the end of 2023 by AID with the launch of the Keraunos satellite and the aim of testing high-speed optical communications based on the innovative technology developed by Cailabs. AID provided €5.5 million ($6.1 million) to fund the Keraunos project which also involved Unseenlabs, another startup based in Rennes, western France.
The team was able to establish a stable laser link over several minutes and thereby not only track the nano-satellite flying in low Earth orbit from the optical ground station, but also receive data sent from the satellite.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry explained that “the advantages of the optical link over the usual radio link are its speed, discretion and independence from regulations that coordinate the use of radio waves. Even if this optical link can sometimes be perturbed by atmospheric turbulence, the Keraunos satellite is able to circumvent them in order to achieve optimum transmission quality.”
Looking thick, solid, tightbeam.