China creates technology that will outshine Starlink — details

Chinese scientists set a new record for the fastest laser communication speed from geostationary orbit at 1 Gbps, which is five times faster than Starlink. They achieved this with only two watts of radiation, equivalent to the output of a nightlight. Their experiment demonstrated that data can be delivered to Earth in less than five seconds, even through a stormy atmosphere.

This was reported by the South China Morning Post.

What is known about this development?

The team, led by Professor Wu Jian of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Liu Chao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, set out to overcome the most difficult task of optical systems: air turbulence, which "smears" laser beams into huge spots upon reaching the ground. Previous attempts by other researchers have used adaptive optics (AO) to "tighten" the wavefront or multimode reception (MDR) to collect the scattered signal. However, these approaches alone produced too many errors.

The Chinese combined the two technologies into a single AO-MDR solution. At the Lijiang ground station, a 1.8-meter telescope equipped with 357 micro-mirrors adjusted the beam shape in real time to reduce distortion. Next, a multiplanar converter divided the light into eight fiber channels. A chip algorithm then selected the three most powerful channels and merged them into one stream.

This synergy increased the signal's strength: at the critical point of communication reliability, the laser became more stable, and the proportion of pulses suitable for transmission increased from 72% to 91.1%. This is crucial for transmitting expensive scientific and commercial data.

China made a name for itself in 2020 when the Shijian-20 satellite demonstrated a speed of 10 Gbps from geostationary orbit. The power of its laser remains classified, and according to media reports, even the American observer was unable to obtain detailed information. "Shijian-20 simply changed its orbit".

This new experiment proves that ultra-low power can provide gigabit channels when optical technologies are properly combined. In the long run, this paves the way for high-speed data exchange between satellites and Earth without the need for massive antennas or large power units, posing a serious challenge to existing systems like Starlink".

Earlier, we reported that Nokia has partnered with NASA to deploy the world's first 4G LTE system on the lunar surface.

Also, China hosts the first-ever boxing match between humanoid robots controlled by operators.