A laser whisper from orbit: Greece hosts Europe's first routine space-to-ground light link

Astrolight has established the first end-to-end optical communication link from its ATLAS-1 laser terminal on the ERMIS-3 nanosatellite to its OGS-2.5 optical ground station at Holomondas, Greece. The link went from first light to routine operations at 1 gigabit per second within a week, with link margins indicating rates up to 10 Gbps are possible. The terminal was developed with the European Space Agency, the University of Athens, and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the team in Lithuania operated both the satellite and ground systems remotely. The company aims to make laser communications routine and practical for commercial satellite missions at scale.