TeraNet Paving the Way for Live Broadcasts from the Moon

Since the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviets in 1957, wireless radio signals have remained the backbone of communications between Earth and space. Despite the significant advancements in all space-related technologies, communication technology has not changed.

With the increasing number of satellites in space and the growing amounts of data exchanged with Earth, lasers have emerged as a promising alternative for space communication. They offer the potential to transmit data at much higher speeds, potentially thousands of times faster than radio waves. This is because lasers operate at much higher frequencies, allowing for much faster data transmission.

The TeraNet project, a network of optical ground stations specialising in high-speed space communications, from the University of Western Australia represents a groundbreaking step forward in this field. It achieved its first success a few days ago when the network successfully received laser signals from a German satellite in low Earth orbit. This success comes just weeks after NASA’s successful transmission of images to the International Space Station using lasers, paving the way for two-way data exchange with space. This could revolutionize applications such as Earth observation, remote control operations, and civil and military communications across…