SES and Airbus to Build a Laser Ground Station for Europe’s EAGLE-1 Quantum Satellite

SES and Airbus will build an optical ground station in the Netherlands to communicate with EAGLE-1, a satellite meant to send quantum-safe encryption keys from orbit. The two signed a ground lease with the municipality of Noordwijk for a site at the NL Space Campus, next to the European Space Agency’s ESTEC technical center. The station is groundwork for a system still in development, not one that is running yet.

How the EAGLE-1 ground station will work

According to the press release, the facility will use a laser link rather than radio to receive keys from the satellite. Specifically, Airbus is building it for SES, with a control room and a dome housing a precise telescope that tracks the satellite to hold the laser connection steady. Because a laser beam from space is easily disturbed by the atmosphere, the station will use adaptive optics to correct in real time for turbulence and temperature shifts.

The keys themselves come from quantum key distribution, or QKD, which uses the physics of light particles to share encryption keys in a way that reveals any eavesdropper. EAGLE-1 is Europe’s first satellite to demonstrate end-to-end secure communication built on that technology.

Building Europe’s quantum communication infrastructure

EAGLE-1 is a public-private project under the auspices of SES with ESA and the European Commission. SES executive Xavier Bertran explained that the station will become the system’s main ground connection and that government and banking users would become early adopters once it starts running, which places those customers in the future, not the present.

The build draws on a European supply chain, with TNO as prime contractor and optics provider, Airbus on the real-time control system, and FSO Instruments, Officina Stellare, and Celestia STS supplying the sensor, telescope and dome, and optical modem. The companies did not give a timeline or cost.