A small satellite built by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens has made an optical laser link with a ground station in Greece, the European Space Agency reports. It is the first time Greece has connected to a low Earth orbit satellite this way.
The CubeSat, called ERMIS-3, carries a compact laser terminal made by the Lithuanian company Astrolight. It linked up with the Holomondas optical ground station run by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki only weeks after the satellite was commissioned. Holding a laser beam on a moving target hundreds of kilometres overhead demands very precise pointing and tracking, and the test proved it can be done from a satellite small enough to hold in your hands.
ERMIS-3 launched in March alongside two sister satellites, as part of Greece’s national space programme run with ESA. Laser links can carry far more data than radio, which could help bring large volumes of Earth-observation imagery down to the ground quickly and cheaply.
Source: European Space Agency