Entanglement-assisted Communication System for NASA's Deep-Space Missions: Feasibility Test and Conceptual Design

This project is involved with transferring information through the vast distances of space. The challenge is that it is difficult to get many photons from a transmitter on Earth to a distant satellite or vice versa. Therefore, one wants to be able to store and transmit as many bits of information as possible on each individual photon. This is the eventual goal of this project. In order to achieve this the team will be looking at what benefits can be obtained by using pairs of photons that are "entangled" with each other. Entanglement is the quintessential quantum mechanical phenomenon that describes the bizarre correlations that can exist between two quantum systems that have interacted with each other at some point in the past. The simplest example would be two coins, each of which are equally likely to give heads or tails when flipped, but somehow both always give the same result when flipped. And in reality, quantum entanglement is even a bit weirder than that. In any event, using entanglement may enable faithful transmission of more information per photon than conventional means; the goal is to demonstrate that, and see what the limits are.

As NASA continues to push into deeper space, and to ever more detailed investigations of our local celestial objects, there is a need for increased communication data rates. This has prompted many investigators to look into what quantum phenomena can offer. Communication at optical wavelengths offers some advantages over radio frequencies due to reduced diffraction.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 2) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.