Satellite image was first broadcast on gigabit laser channels to Earth

The European Space Agency (ESA) сообщило, that the program European Data Relay System first image from the satellite Sentinel-1, located in Earth orbit, have been successfully transferred to Earth means of communications satellite Alphasat laser data channel with a speed of 1.8 Gb / s. The transfer was based on the technology of Laser Communication Terminal (LCT), developed by Airbus Defence and Space in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center DLR.

Carrying a crew equipment satellite Sentinel-1 and in Earth orbit, has established a connection with the communication satellite Alphasat, which, in turn, is in geostationary orbit. Last successfully passed the resulting image with the Sentinel-1 ground data center. Transfer rate amounted to 0.6 Gbit / s with potential opportunities for the channel rate of 1.8 Gbit / s. The distance between nodes LCT data was 45 000 km.

Sentinel-1 was launched on April 3 this year, while the Alphasat - the largest telecommunications satellite in Europe - is a geostationary orbit in July 2013. It was established on the communication device LST, which has already been successfully tested in November last year with ESA ground station in Tenerife.

The successful tests communication between two satellites in different orbits solves two major problems: on the one hand allows the data rate to transmit to the Earth on a daily basis for about 6 terabytes of data, on the other hand, since the transmission performs satellite at a higher orbit, it allows itself transmission over a long time because the ground station will be located in the "line of sight" longer.

Colorful HD-video, released by ESA specifically to the event can be seen below:



Source: geektimes.ru/post/242178/