China has set a new national record in satellite-to-ground laser communication, achieving a peak data transfer speed of 120 Gbps. The capacity was doubled to 120 Gbps, transferring 12.656 terabits of data, through a software update without any hardware changes.
China has set a new national record in laser communication between a satellite and a ground station, reaching a peak data transfer speed of 120 Gbps, surpassing the 100 Gbps threshold. This achievement was made as part of an experiment conducted by the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), operating under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The AIR team had previously achieved speeds of 10 Gbps in 2023 and 60 Gbps in 2025. With this latest experiment, the capacity was doubled to 120 Gbps.
Capacity Doubled Without Hardware Changes
The experiment was conducted between a 500-millimeter aperture laser ground station located on China's Pamir Plateau in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the AIRSat-02 satellite.
First SAR remote sensing images obtained during the experiment
The remarkable aspect is that the performance increase was achieved without any hardware changes. Engineers optimized the laser communication payload on AIRSAT-02 through in-orbit software reconfiguration, boosting its capacity from 60 Gbps to 120 Gbps.
A connection was established between the satellite and the ground station within seconds, with a connection success rate exceeding 93%. The maximum uninterrupted communication duration reached 108 seconds. During this period, a total of 12.656 terabits of data were successfully transmitted. The seamless download and processing of high-resolution remote sensing images confirmed the quality of the data link.
The facility on the Pamir Plateau used in the experiment is notable as China's first satellite-to-ground laser communication station operating in commercial and routine operational mode. Completed in September 2024, the station has supported numerous operational missions since then.
Laser-based satellite-to-ground communication is considered the most suitable solution for ultra-high-speed transmission of large volumes of data from space to Earth. This communication technology is also expected to be critically important for the AI data centers planned to be established in orbit.
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