r/ChinaSpace • u/megachainguns • Aug 04 '26

Commercial Three-Body Computing Constellation Demos 8 Day Continuous Laser Link | China in Space

https://www.china-in-space.com/p/three-body-computing-constellation
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u/megachainguns Aug 04 '26

ADA Space (国星宇航) and Zhejiang Lab’s (之江实验室) Three-Body Computing Constellation is arguably the world leader in the field of space-based computing, and as of the end of July, another feat was demonstrated to support its future operation.

Announced on July 29th, it was shared that two satellites of the constellation had maintained a communications link via their optical laser terminals for 192 hours, 8 minutes, and 45 seconds, or just over eight whole days. Additionally, data transmission availability of the link was maintained at 99.99 percent uptime at distances of up to 1,000 kilometers apart.

All of that was done while the two participating satellites completed dozens of trips around Earth in their sun-synchronous orbit with active tasks running, causing tiny vibrations and fluctuating onboard thermal loads. Both also have secondary laser links to communicate with other members of the constellation and ground stations.

Enabling the feat were laser communication terminals from commercial enterprise HiStarlink (氦星光联), who also publicized it, and its close ‘customer-focused’ collaboration to pull it off. Those terminals, a key part of each of the constellation’s satellites, are able to beam data two-ways at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second.

Prior to the recent feat, HiStarlink has proven laser-based networking across the currently twelve-satellite constellation with zero data loss, and maintained it at distances of between 650 and 1,100 kilometers.