Laser Interconnect and Networking Communications System (LINCS) is a test of
laser communication in space using two
cubesats launched in June 2021.
Background
It was built by
General Atomics for the
US DOD's
Space Development Agency.
[''Space Development Agency, General Atomics eye options after setback in laser comms experiment'' 6 Feb 2022]
/ref>
The two cubesats, LINCS A/B, were launched on SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
's Transporter-2 rideshare in June 2021, but communications were not established by January 2022.[ One theory is that helium exposure during the Falcon 9 launch affected MEMS devices in the cubesats.
]
See also
* Laser communication in space
* Free-space optical communication
References
CubeSats
Laser communication in space
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