I have no idea how any of this actually works in practice, but I imagine a series of MEMS mirrors could split a single physical laser beam into many-many recievers in a time-multiplexed manner.
Probably you could control a good amount of drones with a single satellite transciever, and your typical drone would have LOS to many satellites.
There could be multiplexer drones whose purpose would be to mediate between cheap disposable small drones and the satellites themselves.
This is already a thing (not with lasers and sats) - the Russians have the Orlan drones with sophisticated(ish) surveillance equipment that act as spotters and guide the Lancet suicide drones and artillery
torginus|1 year ago
Probably you could control a good amount of drones with a single satellite transciever, and your typical drone would have LOS to many satellites.
There could be multiplexer drones whose purpose would be to mediate between cheap disposable small drones and the satellites themselves.
This is already a thing (not with lasers and sats) - the Russians have the Orlan drones with sophisticated(ish) surveillance equipment that act as spotters and guide the Lancet suicide drones and artillery