China has launched the world’s first satellite into space “to test the 6G network”, state media reported.
The satellite was launched by the world’s largest telecom operator China Mobile and successfully placed in a low orbit to “offer low latency and high data rates”.
Launched into space with the 5G satellite on Saturday, the satellite will “test the 6G network” and uses “native software and hardware, supports in-orbit software reconstruction, flexible implementation of core network functions and automated management, increasing the efficiency and reliability of the satellite core network in orbit” , China Mobile announced.
The autonomous 6G network was jointly developed by China Mobile and the Microsatellite Innovation Academy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Placing such satellites in low Earth orbit enables “greater telecommunications signal coverage in terrestrial mobile networks, providing higher bandwidth satellite Internet services globally,” the telecommunications giant said.
Last October, Chinese scientists successfully tested a communication device in space that can “transmit light signals from one location to another without converting them into electrical signals.”
The test was conducted by a team at the Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Known as “optical switching technology in space”, it was sent into space from China’s Y7 rocket carrier last August.
Earlier, in November 2020, China launched “the world’s first 6G experimental satellite” into space.
The experimental 6G satellite was intended to “verify terahertz (THz) communications technology in space.”, AA writes.
