In November 2001, the world's first laser intersatellite link was achieved in space by the European Space Agency satellite Artemis, providing an optical data transmission link with the CNES Earth observation satellite SPOT 4.[7] Achieving 50 Mbps across 40,000 km, the distance of a LEO-GEO link.[8] Since 2005 ARTEMIS has been relaying two-way optical signals from KIRARI, the Japanese Optical Intersatellite Communications Engineering Test Satellite.[9]