Xenesis, Inc. has announced their first, all optical ,communication service from space to ground, dubbed “Xen-link,” reaching anywhere on the Earth that can connect to the terrestrial internet backbone.
Xen-Link services consist of the Xen-Hub (space terminal) and a Xen-Node (dedicated ground terminal) and offers a 10Gb/s full-duplex high data rate link, which to put it in perspective would give the ability to download an entire 2 hour 4k HD movie in less than 30 seconds. Xen-Link can also transport 2,600 Gigabits or 2.6 Terabits of data in just over 4 minutes. This is the average time a LEO satellite is in view of a single ground Xen-Node during an orbit, which is about 100 times more data than a 100 Mbps RF data link.
The real barriers Xen-Link addresses are two-fold: the high cost of data acquisition for a satellite operator and the high cap-ex of converting to optical versus RF. Xenesis removes these barriers completely, as Xen-Link is a zero CAPEX solution that delivers a >50x increase in throughput, thereby reducing the actual cost of acquiring any kind of data by a factor of >20x.
In addition, Xen-Link would be set to lower the barrier entry to space by allowing more accessibility for other companies in the industry that may have been previously met with the challenges of the high costs in acquiring data and limited bandwidth that is associated with RF.
“There was a massive hole in the market in providing low-Earth orbiting satellite operators and constellation operators a healthy amount of low-latency bandwidth at a low cost,” added Mark LaPenna, CEO of Xenesis. “Our plan is to begin filling that hole with an optical communications service called Xen-Link, which has unique and marketable capabilities that RF communications simply can’t offer.”
Eric Butte, CTO of Xenesis, said, “With our key technology partners Space Micro, Inc., Geost, and Planewave…Xenesis has put together a working space to ground, full-duplex laser communication link for any future LEO satellites that require very high-speed data rate communications to scale up their product offering.”
Xenesis is a space telecommunications company which uses optical technology & space as a medium, to deliver low cost, low latency & high-capacity communications to Earth Observation, Network Operator & Enterprise customers.