Company makes satellite communication breakthrough

Changguang Satellite Technology, a State-owned enterprise based in Changchun, Jilin province, recently announced that it had achieved success in a space-to-ground high-speed laser communications experiment that was conducted jointly with their self-developed satellite Jilin-1 MF02A04 and the laser ground system deployed by Aerospace Information Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The success means China has successfully applied space-to-ground high-speed laser communications technology, which will lay a solid foundation for the expansion from microwaves to laser, the company said.

The company's core product — the Jilin-1 satellite family — is China's first domestic remote-sensing satellite constellation for commercial purposes. It captures super high-definition images and helps with forest fire warnings, desertification, offshore rescue, ocean protection and other remote-sensing information services.

With the continuous improvement of the spatio-temporal resolution of the constellation, the amount of data generated by Jilin-1 is increasing rapidly. To avoid the limitation of the traditional microwave satellite-based data transmission link to the massive data download of Jilin-1, the company carried out the experiment.

"Researchers from the company made a series of breakthroughs on key core technologies to ensure clear imaging of optical loads while meeting high standards for laser pointing accuracy and stability," said Chen Shanbo, chief designer of satellite Jilin-1 MF02A04. "The optical load image data transmitted successfully during the test showed good quality after analysis and can meet the requirements of business applications with high standards."