Laser Leapfrog: Inside China’s Record-Breaking 1 Gbps Geo-Laser Link and the Post-Starlink Future of Space Internet
On June 17, 2025, a team led by Prof. Wu Jian (Peking University of Posts & Telecommunications) and Dr. Liu Chao (Chinese Academy of Sciences) achieved a 1 Gbps downlink from a geostationary satellite using a 2-watt optical laser. The GEO satellite was parked about 36,705 km above Earth and beamed data to a ground station in southwest China. The ground receiver used an 1.8-meter telescope at the Lijiang Observatory with advanced optics to capture the laser signal. The experiment delivered 1 Gbps downlink, five times faster than SpaceX Starlink’s typical 50–200 Mbps consumer speeds (bursts to 300–500 Mbps under