- Joined
- Mar 3, 2018
- Messages
- 1,713
IEEE Spectrum says that PointView Tech, a Facebook subsidiary, is building a laser satellite communication facility on the peak of Mount Wilson in California. The publication believes that the company is working on a laser communication satellite codenamed "Athena" and says the company has a long running interest in ground to space laser communication technology. Apparently, using lasers instead of regular antennae has the potential to massively increase bandwidth while reducing costs, assuming the kinks can be worked out, and Google is reportedly working on a similar communications project with weather balloons.
Lasers are able to support much higher data rates than radio transmitters for a given input power, and their signals are largely immune to interference or hacking, although clouds can be problematic... If the observatories are part of a laser satellite installation, they might use an optical ground station conceptually similar to Mynaric’s. This transmits its own laser beam up into the atmosphere for a drone-or potentially a satellite-to lock on to. Facebook itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story, and the Mount Wilson Institute, which manages the observatory site, would only say, "The PointView Tech installation is not yet complete..." PointView said in its filing that it expects to launch Athena early in 2019.
Lasers are able to support much higher data rates than radio transmitters for a given input power, and their signals are largely immune to interference or hacking, although clouds can be problematic... If the observatories are part of a laser satellite installation, they might use an optical ground station conceptually similar to Mynaric’s. This transmits its own laser beam up into the atmosphere for a drone-or potentially a satellite-to lock on to. Facebook itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story, and the Mount Wilson Institute, which manages the observatory site, would only say, "The PointView Tech installation is not yet complete..." PointView said in its filing that it expects to launch Athena early in 2019.