Active Physics & Astronomy Clean Energy

Intercontinental Quantum Key Distribution via the QEYSSat mission

Funder EPSRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation Heriot-Watt University
Funding £591K
Period Mar 2025 — Feb 2028

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A satellite launched in late 2024 will exchange entangled photons with a ground station near Edinburgh to create an unbreakable encryption link between the UK and Canada. Today’s fibre-optic quantum networks can only span a few hundred kilometres before signal loss makes them unusable. To connect cities on different continents, you need a way to send quantum signals through free space without the fibre’s attenuation. This project uses the Canadian QEYSSat satellite in low-Earth orbit as a relay: it receives quantum light beamed up from the UK ground station and links it to metropolitan networks in Canada. The approach turns the ground station into a genuine node of a future quantum internet. If the experiment works, it will demonstrate the first intercontinental quantum key distribution using a satellite uplink. That would prove that global-scale, unconditionally secure communication is technically feasible—not just between labs, but between real urban networks used by industry. The project also complements two UK cubesat missions (SPOQC and SPEQTRE) that handle quantum downlinks, so the combined infrastructure could eventually support a practical, satellite-based quantum network spanning the planet.

View original technical description
Quantum communication allows for unconditionally safe encryption of messages between communicating parties. In terrestrial networks, communication distances are limited to 100s of km due to fibre loss. The currently best option to overcome this limitation and enable quantum communication and networking on a global scale is to exchange quantum light between ground stations and satellites. In this project, our team will conduct intercontinental quantum key distribution between metropolitan networks in the UK and Canada. This will be achieved by exchanging entangled photons from an established optical ground station terminal near Heriot-Watt University to the Canadian QEYSSat low-earth orbit satellite launched in Q4 2024 by the Canadian QEYSSat consortium which is led by the University of Waterloo and include the Canadian Space Agency and Honeywell Canada. The project leverages significant investments in the UK quantum space infrastructure, and complements UK-funded cubesat missions SPOQC and SPEQTRE, which will provide quantum downlinks to local ground stations. QEYSSat will allow for quantum uplinks from the ground, establishing the ground station as a true quantum internet node that can be accessed by our industry stakeholders.`

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Researchers

Alessandro Fedrizzi (Principal Investigator)Ross Donaldson (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Experimental satellite quantum communication
Towards a Quantum enabled Cloud
Space-to-Ground Integrated Quantum Networks (SIQN)
Satellite Quantum Communication
ReQON: Reconfigurable Quantum Optical Networking

Original classification

Research and Innovation

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.