The company says Sony lasers should provide ultra-fast data transfer between the spacecraft and ground stations. Thus, the company aims to improve the quality of communication in both the commercial and consumer sectors.

As Sony announced, there are about 12,000 different satellites currently orbiting the Earth, and there will be even more in the coming years. Such devices are usually based on the transmission of information by radio waves – an effective solution in the recent past, but too primitive for modern electronics. To address this shortcoming, the vendor installed SSC, which promises to make a breakthrough in fast data transfer.

In addition to the important energy and antennas, low orbit satellites need to be in line with the ground station to stay in contact with the ground in real time, and communication is only possible at this time. Also, companies need licenses for radio waves. And the significant energy costs for radio transmission are a serious problem for microsatellites. We can solve all this with the help of laser optical communication systems,
– said SSR chief Kehei Iwamoto.

What about Sony’s satellite connection?

SSC engineers are working on optical communication systems that will eliminate conventional radio waves. Such systems have many advantages – they are compact, energy-efficient, do not require large antennas on satellites, which reduces their weight when launched into orbit, and therefore the costs of launching.

And most importantly – it allows you to transfer data not only between satellite and ground stations, but also directly between orbiting satellites, which now provides quick access to any device, even if it is out of sight of the control station.

Specific details on how this technology works were not disclosed. Sony noted that the company has been testing such systems for a long time, and the first prototype was released in 2020, when the IT giant used a laser to transmit high-quality images from the International Space Station to a ground station in Japan.

By the way, here the “unique” country will create its own version of Starlink. A significant amount has been allocated for the project. The Russian Space Agency published the details on its website.

They will implement the plan by 2030. In general, they plan. to see Spending 180 billion rubles. Time will tell whether anything will come up in Russia, which does not have access to Western technologies, but given the semi-alive state of the invaders’ technological space after the imposition of sanctions, they can only hope for another model.