But optical signal amplification is a trick that really only works when you are on a very long run where the signal gets attenuated to the point that you need to boost it. There is no routing option in such a system, it is essentially point-to-point with in-line amplifiers.
So even if they may use laser based comms I don't think optical amplification will be used, the more likely avenue is to decode the optical signal, decide where it has to go next and then fire off another burst.
Alternatively they may use radio waves instead of lasers, I'm not sure what system SpaceX will use for this particular system, given the accuracy required for laser based communications I would assume they will use radio.
I've been reading some more about StarLink, apparently they did a test using lasers so probably that's what they will use for satellite-to-satellite communications, and radio to the ground because of atmospheric interference and sensitivity to rain and clouds.
Are you talking satellite-to-satellite relaying? Assuming they're all moving relative to each other, then probably not, unless the laser transmitter or receiver are moving as well. And moving parts wear down and require power, so you'd want to avoid them on a satellite if possible. However, if parts of the constellation are following each other in exactly the same orbital path, then those parts might be able to optically relay without moving parts.
My first job in 1998 was working on the integration and test plans for Teledesic’s Optical Inter-Satellite Link Tracking (or OISLT, pronounced “oyselt”—probably the worst acronym I ever used). The design wasn’t done yet, but we were already planning integration tests to prove them out before anything was launched.
We were planning on tracking satellites in adjacent orbital planes (which were orbiting in the opposite direction) as well as in-plane. So, yeah, moving parts.
Whenever this topic comes up, I wonder what happened to all the work we did at Motorola in 98-99. There were several hundred engineers in Tempe generating thousands of pages of design documents for over a year. We archived all our work in spring 1999 sand were all shuffled off to other projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_communication_in_space
But optical signal amplification is a trick that really only works when you are on a very long run where the signal gets attenuated to the point that you need to boost it. There is no routing option in such a system, it is essentially point-to-point with in-line amplifiers.
So even if they may use laser based comms I don't think optical amplification will be used, the more likely avenue is to decode the optical signal, decide where it has to go next and then fire off another burst.
Alternatively they may use radio waves instead of lasers, I'm not sure what system SpaceX will use for this particular system, given the accuracy required for laser based communications I would assume they will use radio.