AEROSPACE | SpeQtral begins quantum experiments with SpeQtre satellite
The Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore operates the optical ground station in Singapore, while RAL Space operates the station at Chilbolton Observatory in the United Kingdom.
Quantum communications company SpeQtral has taken operational control of the SpeQtre satellite from UK mission partner RAL Space, marking the start of the mission’s quantum experimentation phase.
The satellite was launched last November and has since been detected and tracked during passes over optical ground stations in Singapore, Chilbolton in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The ground stations have received the satellite’s beacon signal, while the satellite has also received uplink beacons from the ground.
SpeQtral said establishing the links is a key technical step because quantum communications satellites use optical links that require greater pointing precision than conventional radio-frequency satellite communications.
The Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore operates the optical ground station in Singapore, while RAL Space operates the station at Chilbolton Observatory in the United Kingdom.
With SpeQtral now operating the satellite, teams are calibrating and refining the optical links needed for quantum communications. The company is also preparing the satellite’s onboard, space-qualified entangled photon pair source for operations, including calibration to characterize and optimize its performance in space.
The work is intended to provide operational experience and technical data for future space-to-ground quantum communication systems, including the BBM92 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol.
BBM92 uses entangled photon pairs to distribute encryption keys between space and ground systems.
Satellite-based QKD could enable quantum-secure communications over distances that terrestrial fiber networks cannot practically cover. SpeQtral said the technology is being developed as advances in quantum computing threaten widely used encryption standards.
The company also cited concerns that adversaries could collect encrypted data now and attempt to decrypt it once sufficiently capable quantum computers become available.
“Establishing and refining optical links between SpeQtre and ground stations is a foundational step in progressing space-based quantum communications,” said Chune Yang Lum, co-founder and CEO of SpeQtral. “This is technically demanding work, and each stage gives us valuable operational learning as we continue to move quantum-secure communications closer to practical deployment.”
QKD uses quantum physics to distribute encryption keys through very weak light signals. According to SpeQtral, final keys are generated only from data that passes quantum security checks.
The technology could be used for information that needs to remain confidential for decades, including government communications, medical records, legal documents, financial transactions and sensitive data center or cloud infrastructure traffic.
Full disclosure: All news articles published on the TechSabado website are written by human journalists, unless otherwise specified. Final text editing is also performed by human editors, with artificial intelligence (AI) used only to assist with additional grammar and style guide corrections..
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