David Mitlyng for Xairos

Who You Gonna Call?
It is well known that GPS is an Achilles' heel for our modern world.
All networks, communications, and power grids rely on the timing signal from GPS.
But GPS goes down. A lot.
And when it does go down, imagine you are the poor network engineer frantically working to keep your system online.
Who do you call?
Well, you can submit a report through the GPS.gov website. Good luck with that.
What you need is a network time provider that will actually answer the phone.

Last Week's Theme: A Modern Horror Story

• Completed first session of the CDL Quantum Stream. Three excellent lead mentors assigned and preparing for the next session on December 7. The stated goal of CDL is to "work with mentors to sharpen objectives, prioritize time and resources, raise capital, and engage with experts working on the frontiers of research."
• Finalized agreement with a quantum research group at a university to develop space-based projects together.
• Completed a paper for submission to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space.
• Working on National Science Foundation (NSF) proposals and looking ahead to NASA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) solicitations.
• Working on an overall Vision Paper that outlines a larger architecture.
• Setting up an Advisory Board, with confirmation from a leading quantum scientist. Looking to add Advisors for ad hoc support in addition to a formal Advisory Board to help guide our company growth.

• Inside Quantum Technology - November 1 - 5, New York, NY
• Quantum Information and Measurement VI (QIM) - November 1 - 5, Virtual
• Global Conference on Timing and Synchronisation Across Networks, November 1 - 4, Brighton, UK
• Catalyst Accelerator City-Wide Space Community Days, November 3 - 5, Colorado Springs, CO
• TC Sessions: Space 2021, December 14 - 15, virtual

2022

• Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE 2022), January 10 - 14, Snowbird, Utah
• SPIE Photonics West, January 22 - 27, San Francisco, CA
• Quantum Information Processing (QIP 2022), March 7 - 11, Pasadena, CA
• Satellite 2022, March 21 - 24, Washington DC
• Quantum Business Europe, March 23 - 24, location TBD
• Space Symposium, April 4 - 7, Colorado Springs, CO
• Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, May 9 - 12, Denver, CO
• Quantum.Tech Boston, June 14-15, Boston, MA
• IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO

• SES, a leading satellite operator, has set up a satellite quantum communications R&D lab.
• The recent launch of a secretive Chinese debris removal satellite has fueled speculation that it is actually a "satellite crushing weapon."
• Not that you need to actually destroy GPS satellites to disable GPS. It is trivially easy to jam a GPS signal, but spoofing - using a fake GPS signal to deceive the time and/or location at a receiver - is harder. But not that hard.
• Sandia Labs has developed a quantum sensor that may one day lead to “navigating without GPS.”
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Stanford University and Purdue University “developed and demonstrated a novel, fully functional quantum local area network, or QLAN” that is step “on the path toward the highly anticipated quantum internet.”
• The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a "Quantum Computing and Communications" technology assessment report.

One of the side benefits of building a space-based timing network with quantum links is that provides th foundation for a future quantum network.
The GAO report estimates that small quantum networks "could be developed in the next 5 to 10 years at a cost of $50 to $100 million" and that "Quantum communications technologies that are demonstrated in the next 5 years may be foundational technologies that enable quantum networks, such as...space-based entanglement distribution systems could start development."


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