Ottobrunn, Germany, at the Airbus Defence and Space Compact range test facility the EDRS-C satellite is undergoing its final testing before being shipped to Kourou for launch. With EDRS-A already in orbit and performing well EDRS-C will be the second node of the European Data Relay System and the first dedicated EDRS satellite. This system has been designed to enable fast and reliable optical data transfer from low earth orbiting satellites to the ground via the EDRS nodes. By using the EDRS nodes the data transmission window is greatly increased allowing for much more data to be transferred to the ground in Quasi Real Time creating a real SpaceDataHighway
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Source: ESA Top Multimedia