Chinese satellite achieves 5 times Starlink speed with 2-watt laser from 36,000km orbit
Chinese scientists use ‘groundbreaking’ method to push data through turbulent skies from Space to Earth in less than five seconds
Imagine beaming a HD movie from Shanghai to Los Angeles – crossing three Pacific widths – in less than five seconds using just a night light.
This may sound like fantasy because Starlink, operating just hundreds of kilometres above Earth, maxes out at a couple of Mbps.
But from a secret satellite parked in stationary orbit more than 60 times higher, a team of Chinese scientists has used a 2-watt laser – dim as a candle – to push data through turbulent skies to Earth at 1Gbps, five times faster than Starlink.
Satellite laser downlinks are fast but they face a foe: atmospheric turbulence. It scatters light into extremely weak and fuzzy patches hundreds of metres wide by ground arrival.
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