Scientists Demonstrate First Space Quantum Communication Using a Microsatellite

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Scientists Demonstrate First Space Quantum Communication Using a Microsatellite

Scientists Demonstrate First Space Quantum Communication Using a Microsatellite:

Artist's rendering of the SOCRATES satellite. Image Credit: AES

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Tokyo, Japan, has recently reported that they succeeded in the demonstration of the first quantum communication between a microsatellite and a ground station. The signal was sent by a quantum-communication transmitter onboard the SOCRATES satellite.

The instrument, known as the Small Optical TrAnsponder, or SOTA, is the world's smallest and lightest quantum-communication transmitter. It has a mass of roughly 13.22 lbs. (6 kilograms) and its dimensions are 7 x 4.5 x 10.6 inches (17.8 x 11.4 x 26.8 centimeters). This shoebox-sized tool is capable of transmitting a laser signal to the ground at a rate of 10 million bits per second from an altitude of about 370 miles (600 kilometers) at a speed of approximately 15,660 mph.

SOTA was launched into space as part of the Space Optical Communications Research Advanced TEchnology Satellite (SOCRATES) microsatellite in May 2014. The mission’s main goal was to test a standard microsatellite bus technology applicable to missions of various purposes. SOTA has successfully completed its objectives by demonstrating its quantum communication capabilities.

“We are proud to say that the SOTA mission fulfilled all the success levels as foreseen, and more-than-doubled its originally-designed working life of one year,” Alberto Carrasco-Casado of NICT’s Space Communications Laboratory told Astrowatch.net.

According to Carrasco-Casado, four different success levels were established for the SOTA instrument: minimum success, success, full success, and extra success. The minimum success level required a basic check-up of all the lasercom subsystems, while the success level consisted of acquiring the laser beams transmitted from SOTA to the ground station by using different wavelengths and performing basic communication tests.

In order to achieve the full success level a real data transmission from SOTA to the ground station by using error correcting codes to deal with variable atmospheric conditions was needed. When it comes to the most desired extra success level, SOTA needed to successfully conduct lasercom experiments with different ground stations around the world and the quantum-limited communication experiment that was recently described in the Nature Photonics journal.

“The main achievement of SOTA was to be the first lasercom terminal in a microsatellite. Being such a tiny lasercom terminal, we could test several technologies, and perform different experiments,” Carrasco-Casado noted.

The scientists used three wavelengths for communications (800-nm band, 980 nm, and 1550 nm), each of them through a different aperture (small lenses to transmit the 800-nm band and 980 nm lasers, and a 5-cm Cassegrain telescope to transmit the 1550-nm laser), and two different pointing technologies (a coarse-pointing gimbal for the 800-nm band and 980 nm lasers and an additional fine-pointing system for the 1550-nm, being able to deliver a higher power to the ground).

The researchers were able to gather a great deal of atmospheric-propagation data using these technologies, which is critical to characterize the atmospheric channel for future missions. They managed to replicate the experiments in different ground stations around the world (Canada, Germany and France), achieving promising results. For instance, when it comes to the French ground station, the French Space Agency (CNES) group demonstrated an adaptive-optic system to compensate the atmospheric perturbations suffered by the SOTA signals. Finally, they were able to carry out the first quantum-limited communication experiment from space.

“All these technologies are key for the future development of space optical communications and quantum communications,” Carrasco-Casado said.

He underlined that space lasercom will play a more and more important role in satellite communications in the future, and all the technologies that SOTA demonstrated are key to these future developments. For example, the SpaceX constellation plans to use over 4,000 satellites and those satellites will use laser communications to communicate with each other. Moreover, many other constellations and communication networks are being designed at the moment where free-space lasercom plays a key role, with private companies like Google or Facebook investing a great deal of effort in their deployment.

“If Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and lasercom systems can be miniaturized following the heritage of SOTA, this technology could be spread massively, enabling a truly-secure global communication network. Prior to the commercialization of this technology, research organizations like NICT have to demonstrate its feasibility, which was the goal of the SOTA mission. In line of this endeavor, NICT is also actively collaborating in the standardization of lasercom technologies through the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), and the data obtained with SOTA is another important result of this mission,” Carrasco-Casado concluded.

Currently, the Space Communications Laboratory and the Quantum ICT Advanced Development Center in NICT are working together towards future missions that will leverage the expertise and knowledge acquired with the SOCRATES/SOTA mission in technologies related to space laser communications, quantum communications and physical-layer cryptography.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

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Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Saturday, August 5, 2017