European Space Laser Data Highway test has been successful

In Friday, a European satellite sent a picture back to Earth through the latest laser communication technology, which provided a new way for the Government and related organizations to view natural disasters in real time.

This is a test for a 450 million-euro spatial data superhighway. The project's full name is the "European Data Relay Satellite", European data Relay Satellite,edrs, which provides faster and safer ways to deliver large amounts of data, such as images or radar images, on the ground and in the air.

This is particularly useful for real-time monitoring of floods and earthquake disasters.

"At present, to transmit data from satellites to the ground, the satellite must be within the perspective of one of the 4 earth stations," said Joseph Asubach Josef Aschbacher, director of planning and Coordination services for the European Space Agency's Earth observation program.

"This means that after the satellite has left the visual range of a ground station, people will have to wait 45-90 minutes before entering the visual range of the next ground station," he added.

Once the project is completed, the EDRs will be able to eliminate these blind spots through 2 satellites. Satellites equipped with the latest laser technology will be launched in 2015 and 2016, respectively, to transmit data both in the ground and in the air at a rate of 1.8gb/seconds.

According to the commonly accepted industry measurement standards, this means that if the satellite data transmitted per second is printed in a binding volume, it can be filled with a shelf up to 1 meters.

EDRS will provide encryption for some secure transmissions, while also allowing Europe to rely less on offshore ground stations to transmit satellite data.

In a Friday transmission test, a satellite called SENTINEL-1A, which was launched as part of the European Copernican program this April, sent image data to an international maritime communications satellite Alphasat, 36000 kilometres (22369 miles) away, which forwarded relay signals to the ground.

The demonstration of the new technology has allowed the European Space Agency to obtain approval from the European Commission, allowing the former to sign an agreement with Airbus's Astrium before the December 22 deadline to make it the EDRS's project's implementation.

EDRS will then provide relay data for sea ice, oil spills or floods through the Copernican Earth observation project costing € billions of, but the service is also open to other paying customers.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)