In a news release, Ball Aerospace announced that it has been awarded a development and construction contract contract from the Laser Light Communications firm for an eight-satellite “laser communications” satellite constellation. Operating in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) the final constellation of up to 12 satellites is expected to deliver 6 terabits of data per second with service speeds of 200 gigabits per second, bi-directionally, or nearly 100 times faster than conventional radio downlinks.