ANS-C01 pdf - AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty exam (ANS-C01) Updated: 2024

Space lasers, once a mere futuristic joke, have become a real tool in building technology up there and making improvements for all of us down here. There's been NASA's use of space lasers to study plankton, plans to blast space junk and, now, a satellite network courtesy of Amazon. The company has announced that its Project Kuiper has built up its optical inter-satellite links (OISLs) capabilities to create a substantial mesh network of high-speed laser cross-links. This technology could result in faster data transmission to even the most remote places back on earth.

In October, Amazon launched two prototype satellites and reported successful tests one month later, with the pair dispatching and retrieving data at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second. "These tests demonstrated our ability to establish a single bi-directional link between two satellites, and initial data indicates that our design will be able to maintain cross-links between multiple satellites at once—the critical feature of a next-generation mesh network in space," the company stated.

To successfully use OISLs, laser links had to maintain contact at a distance up to 1,616 miles while also contending with spacecrafts moving at a speed of 15,534 miles per hour. Plus, Amazon had to minimize light spreading in order to maintain the signal and account for any additional dynamics of all these moving pieces — something it says has been successfully done.

Amazon also claims the mesh network moves data about 30 percent faster than terrestrial fiber optic cables can. "Amazon's optical mesh network will provide multiple paths to route data through space, creating resiliency and redundancy for customers who need to securely transport information around the world," Ricky Freeman, vice president of Kuiper Government Solutions, explained in a statement. "This is especially important for those looking to avoid communications architectures that can be intercepted or jammed, and we look to forward to making these capabilities available to public sector customers looking to move and land data from remote locations to their desired destination." Basically, anyone from a cruise ship passenger to a multi-day hiker should be able to get a connection if this is successful.

Project Kuiper started in 2019 but has seen a real boost in the last few months. With these successful tests completed, Amazon states that Project Kuiper is starting satellite production, with "full-scale deployment" beginning in the first half of 2024. It also predicts that early customer pilots will begin in the second half of the year. Notably, Amazon signed a deal with SpaceX to launch more Project Kuiper satellites at a faster rate.

Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Amazon announced Thursday that its upcoming Internet satellites will be equipped with terminals to create a mesh of laser links to increase connection speeds.

The company said it completed private tests of its optical inter-satellite link, or OISL, capabilities that will be featured on all of its Project Kuiper satellites and can send 100 gigabytes of data per second between spacecraft over a distance of nearly 621 miles.

"With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a," said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper's vice president of technology in an Amazon statement. "

"This system is designed fully in-house to optimize for speed, cost, and reliability, and the entire architecture has worked flawlessly from the very start. These immediate results are only possible because we approached our OISL architecture as one part of a fully integrated system design, and it's a testament to this team's willingness to invent on behalf of customers."

Amazon said its optical inter-satellite links use infrared lasers to send data between spacecraft as they orbit the planet. While conventional satellites send data between an individual satellite and antennas on the ground, Amazon says its OISLs allow satellites to send data directly to other satellites in its space constellation.

"We are equipping every Project Kuiper satellite with multiple optical terminals to connect many satellites at a time, establishing high-speed laser cross-links that form a secure, resilient mesh network in space. These capabilities increase throughput and reduce latency across our constellation, and provide more flexibility to connect Kuiper customers across land, sea, air, and space," Amazon said.

The latest successful test came after Amazon last month said its Project Kuiper Payload Integration and testing team established a connection with two prototype satellites and conducted a series of tests such as logging into Amazon Prime to complete a purchase, streaming an Amazon Original movie as an ultra-high definition 4K video and conducting the first two-way video call over Amazon Prime.

Amazon plans to install 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit by the end of 2026 to provide broadband to areas with little or no Internet access. Full-scale deployment is on track to begin in the first half of 2024, with beta testing with select customers later in the year.

It turns out Amazon’s satellite internet system shares another similarity with SpaceX’s Starlink: The ability to beam data in space using “laser links.”

On Thursday, Amazon revealed the optical laser technology for Project Kuiper, the company’s rival to Starlink. The laser technology had previously been confidential. But now Amazon is discussing it after the laser links were successfully tested in space using two prototype Project Kuiper satellites launched in October. 

“In early November, we established the first successful optical links between our two prototype satellites, allowing us to send and receive data at speeds of up to 100Gbps for entire test windows of an hour or more,” Amazon says in a blog post.

(Credit: Amazon)

Like Starlink, Project Kuiper plans on using the laser technology to beam internet data from one satellite to another. This means Project Kuiper satellites can fetch internet data from ground stations on Earth’s surface as well as adjacent satellites, creating a mesh network but in space.  

“This is especially important for [satellites] operating in regions without a nearby ground station—for example, a cruise liner in the middle of the ocean or an aircraft making a transatlantic flight—allowing them to securely uplink data from effectively any location on Earth, transmit it through space via laser communications, and downlink it to their destination of choice,” Amazon says.

The prototype satellites were able to send data in both directions over a distance of nearly 621 miles during the test window. “And initial data indicates that our design will be able to maintain cross-links between multiple satellites at once,” Amazon adds. 

The test suggests Project Kuiper’s laser technology can match Starlink’s laser links, which can also sustain a 100Gbps connection, according to a SpaceX tweet from September. 

Amazon adds that it plans on installing the laser link technology into every Project Kuiper satellite. The company also signaled it’s prepared to compete with Starlink outside of ground-based internet users.  “These [laser] capabilities increase throughput and reduce latency across our constellation, and provide more flexibility to connect Kuiper customers across land, sea, air, and space,” the company says.

The news comes a month after the prototype Project Kuiper satellites successfully beamed internet data to company computers on the ground. This included facilitating a video call, streaming from Amazon Prime Video, and making an e-commerce purchase. 

Amazon has been taking the insights from the tests to finalize designs for the Project Kuiper production satellites, which will begin launching into orbit during 2024’s first half. The company then plans on beta-testing the system with select customers later next year.