Switchboard in the sky: free-space optics platform for communications and processing

In the late 1990s, companies such as Motorola and Teledesic have unveiled plans to install a network of satellites at various orbit levels around the Earth. These communication satellites will form a global grid of interconnection networks with land, sea, and space terminals. Essentially, all these interconnection networks are to be radio frequency (rf) links. typical system design. Each switchboard on a satellite will have physically independent optical input ports and output ports. It is also conceivable that each port is reversible and acts as both an input and output port. The scanner ports connect the satellite optical switchboard to the switchboards of other satellites in orbit