This week, China launched the first quantum communications satellite ever. The Chinese declare that the communication satellite is completely hacker proof. The Chinese want to be able to have satellite communications that can’t be breached by anyone and they believe they have accomplished that.
The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) spacecraft lifted off on Monday afternoon in the Gobi Desert at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Chinese have announced that the craft will be on a two year long mission in space. The craft’s mission will be to broadcast messages back to Earth in a specifically developed code that the Chinese say can’t be broken or hacked in to.
In addition, the QUESS spacecraft will be out there studying a most elusive concept for the quantum physics scientists and that is quantum entanglement. According to the concept of entanglement, particles can be entangled, or involved, with one another even if they are a million miles away from each other. Also, if one of those particles undergoes any type of a change, the other entangled ones feel it and react to it.
The primary method of transmitting messages for the QUESS craft will by the use of entangled photons. A communication system such as this one that the Chinese have developed is, in theory and in concept, not possible to hack or understand without the proper codes. Also, if someone were trying to hack into the system or even try and employ remote listening devices, the photons would record the changes and they would be picked up on the ground.
There are many quantum communication systems currently under development by other countries in the world but China is the first to launch and deploy such a system. The QUESS satellite will orbit around Earth once every hour and a half and will orbit around 310 miles above Earth.
PHOTO CREDIT: Xinhua