Thanks for that, Sean.
Yes, there's clearly more to this than meets the eye. Although the "thing" (word used to mimimise any offence caused to the more sensitive souls in our midst) is apparently able to "loiter" for many hours on end (and sometimes at quite high altitudes), I'm also wondering if signals are also passed through manned aircraft, as well. AWACS, for instance.
And I'm guessing that "local" (in-theatre) ground-based uplinks may well be part of the overall picture, too.
I could be wrong (?) but I doubt the satellites communicate with each other. More like a process of uplink to sat-1, downlink to ground station, then uplink to sat-2
etc. when the "thing" gets passed from one satellite to another, I should imagine. Thereby increasing the time (delay) involved, of course.
Controlled locally? It was a similar story with "airborne laser-guided ordnance". Some of those needed a guy (guys) on the ground to have a laser beam on target (for the missile to fly down, if you like ... and/or to pinpoint [light-up] the target).
By the way, stuff like this
could have a "medical" application as well, could it not? For example, the surgeon at Johns Hopkins* controlling the medical robot in [wherever].
*
Other state-of-the-art medical centres of excellence are undoubtedly available.
