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SpaceX’s Starlink service, which sells ultrafast broadband to the UK and globally via a mega constellation using thousands of compact satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has revealed the development of a new “mini laser” that will enable their satellites to connect with “third party satellites and space stations“.
Starlink currently has around 8,190 satellites in orbit (c.4,500 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’ll add thousands more by the end of 2027. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £75 a month ($120 in the USA), plus £299 for hardware (currently free for most areas) on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which promises UK latency times of 28-36ms, downloads of 103-258Mbps and uploads of 15-26Mbps. Cheaper and more restrictive options also exist for roaming users.
According to the company’s VP of Engineering, Michael Nicolls, Starlink has also developed an additional “mini laser” that will be used to “connect third party satellites and space stations into the Starlink constellation“. Take note that existing platforms already include three lasers, but these are only designed to link between Starlink’s own satellites (ISL), which run at speeds of up to 200Gbps (distance unclear).
The new mini laser is designed to achieve link speeds of 25Gbps (Gigabits per second) at distances up to 4,000km and has recently been successfully tested in orbit on a satellite launched on the Starlink G10-20 mission earlier this month. You can get a little taste of this laser in a new video that depicts the company’s satellite production process (here).
In theory, this could open up a new market for Starlink by serving third-party satellites with additional connectivity and redundancy options, although the distance does limit its use to platforms in low and medium earth orbits.