World’s First Successful Ground-to-Space Optical Communication by Private Companies! NewSpace Opens the Way to the Future of Optical Communications. [Latest Trends in Space Business: WSBW 2024]
From September 16 to 20, 2024, World Space Business Week (WSBW), a major event where trends in the satellite industry are gathered, was held again this year at The Westin Paris — Vendôme, close to the Louvre Museum. This conference has been organized by Euroconsult since 1997 under the name of “World Satellite Business Week” as a forum for discussing the latest technology and business trends in satellite-related fields.
However, this year, Novaspace, which was created through the merger of Euroconsult and SpaceTec Partners, is the new organizer of the conference, and the name has been changed to “World Space Business Week (WSBW).”
This year’s conference was the largest ever, with more than 260 speakers and over 1,600 industry professionals from more than 50 countries, including online participants.
Hirokazu Mori, Group CSO and U.S. CEO of Warpspace participated in the event and took the stage in a panel discussion. In this article, we report on WSBW in detail.
(Click here to read last year’s article.)
One of the features of this year’s WSBW, Mori pointed out, was that the participants were carefully selected.
He said,
“In the past, there was a wide range of participants, from large companies to start-ups, but now there is a clear division between successful and less successful companies, especially in the space transportation sector. Companies that are growing well have increased their participation, while those that have gone private or have been forced to downsize no longer show up at WSBW.”
Many companies are now trying to develop rockets, but looking around the world, only a few companies such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab are launching customer satellites regularly. In Japan, companies such as Interstellar Technologies have grown and established a presence in the transportation industry, and there are high expectations for future development.
Turning back to the trends in the participants, the number of major satellite manufacturers that are customers of space transportation services is increasing, indicating the growing need for launch vehicles as security-related budgets increase in many countries.
Reference
(*1【Rocket Lab】Rocket Lab Successfully Launches 53rd Electron Mission, Deploys Another Five Satellites for Kinéis)
Private companies led the world’s first successful ground-to-space optical communication. Are they entering the next phase!?
Mori participated in a panel discussion on optical ground stations. The panel included Sylvain Baissac, Vice President of Safran Data System; Mina Mitry, CEO and co-founder of Kepler Communications; Jean-Francois Morizur, President and co-founder of Cailabs, and moderator Kat Hickey, Manager of Novaspace, discussed the future of the optical satellite communications industry.
Optical communication was rarely discussed at this conference five or ten years ago, but three years ago a panel was set up for the first time, and this year two panel discussions were held on optical communication. This suggests that optical communication technology is becoming an important part of the space industry.
This panel focused in particular on Cailabs’ first successful ground-to-space optical communication as a private company-led project. (*2)
The world’s first high-speed optical satellite communications between a nano-satellite in low orbit and a commercial optical ground station, thanks to a stable laser link established in the summer of 2024. The French Defense Innovation Agency (AID) led the project at the end of 2023, in collaboration with the French NewSpace companies Cailabs and Unseenlabs. The French Defense Innovation Agency provided €5.5 million in funding for this project, which resulted in a further boost to France’s defense technological capabilities.
Reference
(*2【Cailabs】Successful initial tests of the KERAUNOS optical communications satellite)
In this experiment, a laser link was stably established for several minutes, and the optical ground station successfully tracked low-orbit nano-satellite and closed-loop laser communications.
Compared to conventional wireless communications, optical communications have the advantages of higher speeds, less subject to radio spectrum restrictions, and more discreet data handling; the KERAUNOS project is taking full advantage of these advantages, mitigating turbulence, and ensuring optimal transmission quality by using Cailabs’ photonics technology.
Cailabs worked with the French newspace company Unseenlabs to develop a ground receiver that is reliable and robust enough for commercial delivery. The Unseenlabs’ nano-satellite has an architecture that allows for rapid integration of laser payloads.
This enables data transmission from space to ground, and the technology is expected to be available for mobile, land-based, sea-based, and airborne platforms in the future. With the possibility of integration into French military satellite systems, this KERAUNOS project also contributes to the goals of the 2024–2030 Military Planning Act.
Mori emphasized,
“While satellite-to-satellite communication is already a mature technology in the public and private sectors, the success of this private-sector initiative in more challenging ground-to-space optical communications is of great significance.”
The success of Cailabs and Unseenlabs is an important step toward the commercial development of optical communications technology and marks the next phase in the industry.
Expectations for the development of optical communication technology through the growth of private companies continue to rise.
(Writer: Natsumi Kawaguchi)
