Bringin' home the Space-BACN: DARPA kicks off laser link project - Breaking Defense

DARPA’s project to develop low-cost, high-speed and, perhaps most importantly, reconfigurable optical data links to connect non-compatible Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations is a go, with 14 firms winning awards for the project’s design phase.

Commercial firms, as well as the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency, are planning to orbit thousands of new high-bandwidth communications satellites in LEO, explained DARPA Program Manager Greg Kuperman in a video on the far-future research agency’s website. “But due to how new these systems are, and the cutting edge technology needed for optical communications and space, there are numerous incompatible standards that prevent satellites from talking to each other,” he said.