EOS Spacelink

[Steven Pietrobon]

EOS here in Australia are developing Spacelink. This is a four spacecraft constellation in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at 14,000 km that will be using optical links to LEO satellites, the ground and between the Spacelink satellites for high speed digital communications. A yellow laser is used to excite sodium atoms in the atmosphere to help guide the laser. They are planning second and third blocks. The constellation should be deployed by 2024.

They've also been selected by CASIS to host an optical terminal on ISS with 10 Gbit/s data rates. Launch will be on a CRS mission. They are also in discussion with NASA.

A podcast discussing Spacelink is below, with my summary above.

https://www.spaceconnectonline.com.au/operations/5013-talking-space-innovation-with-eos-communications-systems-glen-tindall

Here's their website and videos.

https://www.eosspacelink.com/

https://player.vimeo.com/video/540827653
https://player.vimeo.com/video/583023134

Here's their CASIS press release.

https://www.eosspacelink.com/spacelink-selected-to-fly-demo-on-international-space-station/

[RoadWithoutEnd]

Maybe the podcast answers this, but it's a short enough question I might as well just ask: Why MEO?

[Steven Pietrobon]

Maybe the podcast answers this, but it's a short enough question I might as well just ask: Why MEO?

The only answer they give is so that they can communicate with the LEO satellites below. I'm guessing the trade off of GEO with three large satellites and MEO with four smaller satellites favoured MEO.

[su27k]

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/1425444595136073736

Australia's @ElectroOpticSystems's #SpaceLink wants customer commitment before financing/building $700M 4-sat MEO data-relay network. US govt customer says: No, built it first and we'll see. @FCC
@ITU @acmadotgov. https://bit.ly/3xDhhTw