Laser communication between stealth ships
Suppose that in our Solar System in the future will be two stealth ships (small cross section/low temperature signature/radar absorbent material). Still visible for human eye and detectable when moving at full speed or engaging in combat.
To communicate between each other they use encrypted tight-beam laser link. Mostly they keep radio silence and avoid communication unless it is absolutely necessary.
The question is how they could communicate not knowing each other's exact position? Suppose there is no possibility for fixed-point relay station or making schedule (stealth ships observe the Earth space fleet and its colonies).
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/32886. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
The thing with laser is that you won't be able to detect it unless you're right in the beam, or you see reflected light off of dust and other things. That is to say, it would be harder to detect than your stealth ships unless it was pointed directly at you.
So if you knew roughly where the other ship was going to be at a certain time, you could do a laser sweep of the area.
The ship that you are communicating with could then detect the origin of the beam, and use that to aim its own communication laser. When the first ship sees the communication request, it would stop sweeping and more precisely aim its laser, allowing communication to proceed.
0 comment threads