Tomorrow is Today

European Scientists Propose Quantum Link Between International Space Station and Earth

The proposal, published by the Institute of Physics and the New Physics Journal today, is surprisingly simple, and exceptional because it requires very little in the way of modification to the ISS.

Basically, the ISS is already equipped with a Nikon camera and 400mm lens (together called NightPod), pointed at the Earth through a 70cm window in the Cupola Module. The European physicists’ proposal would keep the lens in place, but replace the camera with a new, single-photon counting module. This module would be shipped to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon or a Russian Soyuz capsule.

Once the module is in place, a base station here on Earth on will entangle pairs of photons, with one half being kept on Earth, and the other half being transmitted to the ISS.

The physicists propose two experiments. The first is a standard Bell-type experiment, which confirms that the entangled photons are indeed under the governance of quantum physics, rather than classical physics (which strictly doesn’t allow for these quantum entangled shenanigans).

The second experiment would see the transmission of a quantum cryptography key, to see if it’s viable to secure conventional communications with space-based quantum key distribution (QKD).

These experiments will be carried out as the ISS makes overhead passes of the optical ground station. ”During a few months a year, the ISS passes five to six times in a row in the correct orientation for us to do our experiments. We envision setting up the experiment for a whole week and therefore having more than enough links to the ISS available,” says Rupert Ursi, co-author of the proposal.

(via European scientists propose world’s largest quantum network, between Earth and the ISS | ExtremeTech)

New Company To Use Metamaterials Tech to Turn the Surface of Planes Into Satellite Antennas

That bulbous protrusion in the front of many planes and pilotless drones could become a thing of the past if Intellectual Ventures’ second spinout company pans out.

Executives at the Bellevue, Wash. patent-holding company today are expected to unveil Kymeta, a 15-employee company that’s applying so-called metamaterials to satellite communications.

Its first products, most likely for aircraft, should be available commercially by 2015. Eventually, executives say, Kymeta’s technology could find its way to ships, trains, and even come in the form of a personal satellite hot spot that’s about the size of a typical laptop computer.

You may remember a quick round of gee-whiz technology about this technology three years when academics were talking about their ability to bend light and create an “invisibility cloak.” Kymeta, and the products it’s working on, are the practical application of that research.

(via Remember invisibility cloak tech? It’s useful for talking to satellites | Cutting Edge - CNET News)

NASA Tests Collaboration Scenarios With Communication Delays to Prep for Deep Space Missions

The first round of tests, conducted in May, was performed in line with NASA’s current procedures.

Three 2-hour scenarios—a normal return from a mission to an asteroid, a return with a spacecraft system failure, and a return with an onboard medical emergency—were each simulated with time delays of 1.2 seconds, 50 seconds, and 5 minutes. In the second round of tests, the crew had access to software tools currently used only by ground-based planners and spacecraft support teams, as well as a combination of other technologies.

Frank and his team are still analyzing the results, but one surprise stood out: The time delay that posed the biggest challenge was not the longest—the 5-minute delay—but the 50-second delay. “Fifty seconds is just long enough, where your expectations of an immediate response are violated, but it’s not so long that it’s blindingly obvious to you that you are going to have to wait,” says Frank. One of the new techniques that proved popular with simulation subjects was to replace voice communications with text-based “chat” sessions.

Another popular tool was a system that allowed flight controllers to monitor how far along an astronaut had gotten in a procedure without having to interrupt him or her for a status update. With this portable system, crew members stepped through procedures as they worked on a task, and mission control automatically received notifications of each step as the astronauts advanced through procedures.

(via New Communication Tech for Deep-Space Missions - IEEE Spectrum)

Marines Want Better Networks, Sensors — And Terminator Vision

[Marines] want data networks that can keep them connected all the way from the decks of their ships to the beaches they storm. They want online search tools that rely on natural language instead of keywords (like the rest of us). And they want software that can sift through the oceans of data their wartime sensors and cameras collect — including tools that can scan through faces in a crowd, like the Terminator, and alert Marines to danger.

That’s according to the Corps’ blueprint for its science and technology needs over the next 20 years. Communications are a big, gaping hole for the Marines of the present, and the Marines want to hand their successors more seamless, networked ways of talking. That’s on top of other wish-list material, like advanced sensors that can sniff drugs and homemade bombs — oh, and laser-stopping goggles.

…From “flagpole to fighting hole,” the blueprint writes, Marines need to be in constant communication: “The objective is to provide a holistic, end-to-end, turnkey [command-and-control] capability to execute commander’s intent, facilitate implicit communications, visualize battlespace reality, promote initiative, enable centralized command and decentralized control, and ultimately accomplish the mission.”

(via smarterplanet)