Russia to test quantum data transmission from space station in 3 years

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Russia plans to test data transmission with the help of quantum cryptography (quantum key distribution) from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth in three years, Deputy Director General for Information Research at the Advanced Research Fund Sergei Garbuk said on Friday, TASS reports.

"Our Fund is preparing jointly with Roscosmos [State Space Corporation] a project of testing the system of [quantum] cryptographic key dispersion from the space vehicle, from the ISS. We expect that a demonstration prototype will appear in about three years to help check the technology's efficiency and technological limits by the speed, distortion, etc." he said at a conference titled: "Digital Industry of Industrial Russia."

Quantum signal re-transmitters have to be created to successfully develop quantum data transmission technologies, Garbuk said. A quantum key consisting of photons fades out, i.e. it can be transmitted only to a distance of 100-150 km and "that is why a principal issue is to create quantum re-transmitters that help ... reproduce, re-transmit quantum states farther, transmit them farther to the next 100-150 km," he noted.

As Garbuk also said, last year data were successfully transmitted in China from a satellite to Earth with the help of quantum cryptography for the first time in history. Quantum cryptography is viewed as a method that theoretically excludes the possibility of the unauthorized access to transmitted information.