LASER BEAM
December 1st, 2001
BY KEITH NUTHALLTHE EUROPEAN Space Agency has established a data link between satellites using a laser beam to carry signals, the first time this has been achieved. The SILEX system on ESA's Artemis satellite was able to receive images in real time from the French space agency CNES's Earth observation satellite SPOT 4, relaying them to an image processing center in Toulouse. The test data was transmitted from SPOT 4 at a rate of 50 million bits per second with a high degree of accuracy, said an ESA statement. Without the Artemis relay, said the space agency, SPOT ...
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