A Laser Message from Space
This is a pretty big deal. At the moment there are two main methods to communicate with the ISS, TDRSS and UHF.<p>UHF can only be used when the ISS is over the US.<p>TDRSS is a shared satellite network between several government agencies. NASA receives "allotments" of time with the network. So if the ISS is outside of UHF range, and another agency has the TDRSS the ISS goes black - we lose all comm with it.<p>A network of laser receivers across the globe could potentially eliminate the current "black outs" NASA has when communicating with the ISS.