The team has already proven that its millimeter wave system can trade data between two fixed points eight miles away from each other at a rate of nearly 20 Gigabits per second. That’s roughly 400 times the speed of your home Internet connection. Facebook believes this is a world record for equipment that’s so light and consumes so little power.
But achieving that rate in connection with a moving target—and pushing that data rate even faster—are enormously difficult. First the team has to calibrate the precise orientation of the ground antenna using the position of the Sun. Then the flying antenna must lock in on that ground antenna—while hurtling through the sky at more than a hundred miles an hour, eight miles away, connecting with nothing a millimeter wave beam. It’s is like trying to thread a moving needle from the other side of a room.
During the test flight, hours go by: red circle zooming past tiny spec, locking briefly, falling away, the team anxiously waiting for a consistent lock.
