Kourou, French Guiana, at Europe’s spaceport the EDRS-C satellite is being prepared for launch. Soon this second node of the European Data Relay system will join the EDRS-A node already in orbit, as the first dedicated EDRS satellite. EDRS has been designed to enable fast and reliable optical data transfer from low earth orbiting satellites to the ground. To achieve this the EDRS system uses state-of-the art laser link communication terminals and in combination with the longer data transmission offered EDRS, much more data can be transferred to the ground in Quasi Real Time, thus creating a real SpaceDataHighway.
Credit: ESA
