Alphasat: 'Space A380'

[Pi314]

For those interested in the European side of telecommunications satellite technology:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23714597


Also being tested on this satellite is a new optical communication experiment. NASA is currently experimenting with this also, as they need higher communication rates to transmit large chunks of data for the next generation of exploration spacecraft:

http://phaeton.jpl.nasa.gov/external/projects/optical.cfm