Starlink's Laser System Is Beaming 42 Million GB of Data Per Day | PCMag

I have researched Starlink a bit but didn’t realize that the system also does peer-to-peer transmission between the satellites. This is incredible.

Although Starlink uses radio waves to beam high-speed internet to customers, SpaceX has also been outfitting the company’s satellites with a “laser link” system to help drive down latency and improve the system's global coverage. The lasers, which can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link, are especially crucial to helping the satellites fetch data when no SpaceX ground station is near, like over the ocean or Antarctic. Instead, the satellite can transmit the data to and from another Starlink satellite in Earth’s orbit, forming a mesh network in space.

This was the realm of Sci-fi until now. Impressive. If you roll this forward you can see the existing terrestrial Internet backbone, with a parallel orbital backbone, and data jumping from one to the other as needed. This is also the first thing that could possibly get around those giant undersea data cables that are constantly getting damaged. 🤯