In article ,
Ken Taylor wrote:
...Satellite to satellite can
be done, as in the Iridium system, but I don't know of any other system
off-hand which is commercial and made it to service. There's generally not
actually a need.

Iridium does it, and there is some use of GSO comsats to talk to stuff in
low orbit (notably but not exclusively, NASA's TDRS system), but nobody's
done GSO comsats with intersatellite links, yet. It's been talked about
for some special purposes -- e.g., at one time, the DSP missile-warning
satellites in GSO were going to have laser cross-links so that White Sands
could talk to all of them without needing overseas ground stations -- but
it hasn't actually happened yet. At least, not on anything unclassified.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |