Networks

Brit military boffins test ground station with infra-red lasers to deliver multi-gigabyte downloads

Britain is looking to deploy high-speed optical satellite links for its armed forces, with the aim of providing faster and more secure comms for personnel on operations.

The UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) says it has completed field trials it funded involving downloads of data from space with a “deployable” optical ground station from UK firm Archangel Lightworks.

“Deployable” here means that the unit in question - the TERRA-M - is small and light enough to be transported by a ground vehicle or aircraft to where it is needed, and it can be sited on the roof of a building.

According to Dstl, “many gigabytes” of data were downloaded from a satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) during a single 90-second satellite pass. The demonstration provides a way for faster and more secure communications for the UK’s armed forces, it said.

We asked for confirmation that this means the TERRA-M will be acquired for use by the British military, and when it is expected to come into service.

Archangel Lightworks told us its tech is based on short-wave infra-red lasers, which are non-visible to the human eye. This makes communications difficult for an adversary to detect and intercept compared with a more conventional radio frequency beam.

The system was designed to be interoperable with emerging satellite laser communication standards and terminals, and is software defined, allowing the use of different protocols. It can be reconfigured on a pass-by-pass basis if required, a spokesperson told us.

Each unit is just over a meter (about 3.5 ft) tall and 0.7 m (2.3 ft) in diameter, making it “a fraction of the size of traditional optical ground stations,” Archangel claims. The system can transmit and receive data at up to 10 Gbps, and could in future scale to terabit-per-second (Tbps) downlinks, we're told.

“The TERRA-M is uniquely capable of rapid, secure data transfer with satellites while also being small enough to be deployed and redeployed at the point of need,” CEO Richard Johanson said in a supplied remark.

UK Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard MP said space is crucial for military communications, allowing Britain’s sailors, soldiers and aviators to conduct ops wherever they are.

“By developing laser communications we’re dramatically increasing how quickly and securely our satellites can talk to our bases on Earth, protecting these communications from interference and giving us an advantage over our adversaries,” he claimed.

Archangel Lightworks secured more than £10 million ($13.4 million) in a Series A funding round earlier this year, in order to support the commercialization of TERRA-M, the company said.

Elsewhere, the US Space Force awarded a $2.29 billion contract to rocket firm SpaceX for development of its Space Data Network (SDN) Backbone program. This is intended to be a LEO satellite constellation that functions as an integrated network, providing high-capacity and low-latency data services for US forces. The agreement requires SpaceX deliver a fully operational prototype capability by the end of 2027.  ®