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Table 2 Milestones leading to on-orbit QKD demonstrations

From: Nanosatellite experiments to enable future space-based QKD missions

Year

Milestone

Mission

Reference

2012

Basic miniature SPDC source

High altitude balloon test

[29]

2013

Correlated SPDC pair source

High altitude balloon test

[30]

2014

Space-qualified, correlated, SPDC source survives rocket explosion

GomSpace GomX-2 CubeSat

[31]

2015

Space-qualified, correlated, SPDC source in low earth orbit

NUS Galassia CubeSat

[32]

2017

Demonstration of entangled photon pair source in space

CQT SpooQy-1 CubeSat

[33]

2018

Demonstration of high-brightness entangled photon pair source in space

CQT SpooQy-2 CubeSat

[34]

  1. These missions test the space-worthiness of the devices in-situ and do not involve beaming photons outside the spacecraft. Future missions (at the time of writing) are italicised.