Lasers to boost 'speed' of new USAF satellite

Lasers To Boost Speed Of New USAF Satellite

By MICHAEL FABEY
August 29, 2005

The U.S. Air Force’s new Transformational Satellite System (TSAT) will transmit data even faster than anticipated, achieving fiber-optic speeds with orbit-to-ground lasers, officials say.

Throughput for the five-satellite constellation could top out at 10 to 40 gigabytes per second, said Joseph Rouge, associate director of the National Security Space Office.

“That’s the ballpark we’re working in,” said Rouge, whose office works to coordinate space efforts across DoD and other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Today’s Milstar II satellites take about two minutes to transfer a simple photo of a few megabytes taken by an unmanned aerial vehicle. That same image could take about 23 seconds on the next-generation Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites, which will start to go up in the next few years.

TSAT could move the image in far less than a second, Rouge said.

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That satellite already seems like it will have an important role in future conflicts.

Hopefully they dont go way over budget like most high price tag projects do.

Also, since the data is tranmitted via laser...would that make it useless when theres clouds?

Originally posted by Murcielago
Hopefully they dont go way over budget like most high price tag projects do.

Also, since the data is tranmitted via laser...would that make it useless when theres clouds?

Thats probably why there is only going to be 5 of them. A nice addition to the U.S military's fleet of satellites.