Following ESA’s recent agreement with an SES-led consortium to support the Quantum Cryptography Telecommunication System (QUARTZ), SES has announced ten new project partners including universities, research organisations and leading industry partners that have joined the consortium.
QUARTZ is part of ESA’s ScyLight (SeCure and Laser communication Technology) project, which supports the development of innovative optical technologies for satellite communication, and assists industry in developing new market opportunities for them.
As part of the project framework, SES and partners will go through the whole life cycle to develop a satellite-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and service architecture, which will include core technologies and ground end-to-end testing.
On the occasion of the ScyLight workshop on ‘’Optical and Quantum Communication’’ in Florence on 7th June 2018, SES announced the ten new project partners that will develop the elements of the cybersecurity system, which in turn will generate encryption keys in space and distribute them to customers on Earth via laser/optical communications.
The partners are:
- AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
- German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Communications and Navigation
- ID Quantique
- itrust consulting
- Ludwig-Maximilians-University
- LuxTrust
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
- Palacky University
- Tesat-Spacecom
- TNO
