Here's a paper (from July 2025) on previous steps in this program, getting up the initial testing in flight. Maximum uplink laser power of 20W, though they got good performance all the way down to 2W. The sat has a laser pointing down that was used to help lock on, but it's not clear if it has any meaningful downlink capability, all discussions are about uplink capability. Lots a nerdy details here.

https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of...

In addition, here's a random paper on the testing performed on the space borne laser terminals - https://icsos2012.nict.go.jp/pdf/1569586689.pdf

This tells us that the laser terminals have a FOV of +/-2.5mrad in acquisition mode (so before lock on), and +/-0.5mrad in communication/tracking mode. This corresponds ~100km and ~20km radius FOV from GEO to surface.

"low-latency links", says the article. I wonder if they consider 500 ms ping to be low, or if they want to replace Geostationary with Low Earth Orbit.

    2. Jam-Resistant Land Mobile Communications

       This system uses a highly redundant optical communication technique
       to achieve ultra-low, ultra-robust transmission.  The basic unit is
       the M1A1 tank.  Each tank is labelled with the number 0 or 1 painted
       four feet high on the tank turret in yellow, day-glo luminescent
       paint.  Several detection methods are under consideration:

Nice, if you want a bit more details on the TNO side https://www.tno.nl/en/newsroom/2026/02/airbus-tno-demonstrat... relying on https://connectivity.esa.int/archives/projects/ultraair

I marvel at the ability to track a target in both directions ~40k+ km away while moving quickly (kinematic) considering atmospheric and relativistic effects.

> These developments entail a future where travellers could enjoy reliable, high‑speed internet while flying, and where people on ships or in vehicles crossing remote regions can stay connected without interruption.

How reliable/feasible would this be on the ground? From what I understand, shining non-trivial lasers in the sky is a massive liability because of the potential to interfere with aircraft. I don't see anything about the wavelength used, but even if it's outside the visible spectrum, it would still be subject to interference from aircraft when used on the ground or at sea.

How does Air force one accomplish their data connection?

Some miniaturization required.

But that means you need to have a different laser pointed at every single individual aircraft right? Doesn’t really scale.

I'm really curious how the tracking works in such a system, and how "bad" the beam spread is (my impression is that from the diffraction limit alone the beam has to be spread over at least a ~10m radius after travelling 36000km).

Some info on the laser itself would also be very interesting (power? wavelength?).

Really cool project though!

Impressive! I believe round trip latency would be 0.5 seconds.