The Internet Is Leaving Earth
Beyond NASA, Starlink satellites are using optical inter-satellite links to transmit data via infrared laser beams
WASHINGTON, April 19, 2026 – Satellites are beginning to communicate with each other using lasers instead of radio waves, a shift already underway in low-Earth orbit and on NASA’s Artemis II mission. The technology could begin to reshape how global networks are built in space.
For more than half a century, space communications have relied on radio frequencies. When Apollo astronauts first spoke from the Moon, their voices traveled over S-band frequencies, a system that remains in use today aboard NASA’s Artemis missions. But as data demands surge and satellite networks expand at an incredible speed, that legacy architecture is beginning to show its limits.
In low-Earth orbit, SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are using optical inter-satellite links to transmit data via infrared laser beams, allowing signals to travel directly between satellites instead of routing through ground stations, according to SpaceX technical materials and industry reporting on the system’s laser interlink architecture.
