{"id":427946,"date":"2026-02-16T01:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427946\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T01:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:57:08","slug":"china-shatters-space-ground-transmission-record-with-120-gbps-laser-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427946\/","title":{"rendered":"China shatters space-ground transmission record with 120 Gbps laser link"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\u24d8 Jack B via Unsplash<\/p>\n

<\/a>A skyline featuring a light beam<\/p>\n

By reconfiguring satellite software in orbit, researchers on the Pamir Plateau have doubled the capacity of existing laser communications, setting a new domestic speed record.<\/p>\n

The Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully completed an operational application experiment that pushes satellite-to-ground laser communication past the 100-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) threshold. Achieving a peak transmission speed of 120 Gbps, this milestone marks a significant improvement in high-speed space data transmission capabilities. <\/p>\n

This achievement builds upon a rapid succession of technological leaps by the AIR team, which previously recorded speeds of 10 Gbps in 2023 and 60 Gbps in 2025. The recent experiment utilized a self-developed 500-millimeter aperture laser ground station situated on the Pamir Plateau in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, communicating directly with the AIRSAT-02 satellite. <\/p>\n

The engineering team made this breakthrough without any physical hardware modifications to the AIRSAT-02 satellite. The capacity was effectively doubled from 60 Gbps to 120 Gbps purely through in-orbit software reconfiguration, fully unlocking the potential of the existing laser communication payload. <\/p>\n

The test data attest to the stability and efficiency of the new system: <\/p>\n

Rapid link acquisition. The satellite and ground station established connections in seconds, maintaining a success rate exceeding 93%.Continuous transmission. The system sustained a maximum continuous communication duration of 108 seconds.Massive data volume. A total of 12.656 terabits of data were transmitted during the window.<\/p>\n

Li Yalin, senior engineer at AIR and the team’s technical lead, noted the exponential difficulty of this advancement. Li compared the previous 10 Gbps benchmark to a simple single-lane bridge, while describing the 120 Gbps achievement as a complex multi-lane highway requiring both rapid construction and high-efficiency parallel traffic.<\/p>\n

\tThe laser ground station used to carry out the experiment<\/p>\n

\t\"Chibuike<\/a>Chibuike Okpara<\/a> – Tech Writer – 400 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024<\/p>\n

I have always been fascinated by technology and digital devices my entire life and even got addicted to it. I have always marveled at the intricacy of even the simplest digital devices and systems around us. I have been writing and publishing articles online for about 6 years now, just about a year ago, I found myself lost in the marvel of smartphones and laptops we have in our hands every day. I developed a passion for learning about new devices and technologies that come with them and at some point, I asked myself, “Why not get into writing tech articles?” It is useless to say I followed up the idea \u2014 it is evident. I am an open-minded individual who derives an infinite amount of joy from researching and discovering new information, I believe there is so much to learn and such a short life to live, so I put my time to good use \u2014 learning new things. I am a ‘bookworm’ of the internet and digital devices. When I am not writing, you will find me on my devices still, I do explore and admire the beauty of nature and creatures. I am a fast learner and quickly adapt to changes, always looking forward to new adventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u24d8 Jack B via Unsplash A skyline featuring a light beam By reconfiguring satellite software in orbit, researchers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[156876,16861,268,76178,6110,269,262,267,261,270,266,263,129,90,416,156875,265,264,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-427946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-aerospace-information-research-institute","9":"tag-air","10":"tag-benchmarks","11":"tag-cas","12":"tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","13":"tag-graphics-card","14":"tag-laptop","15":"tag-netbook","16":"tag-notebook","17":"tag-processor","18":"tag-reports","19":"tag-review","20":"tag-reviews","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-space","23":"tag-space-ground-data-transfer","24":"tag-test","25":"tag-tests","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}