China’s Quantum Satellite Links with World’s First Mobile Ground Station

(Xinhuanet) China’s quantum satellite — Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) — has successfully linked up with the world’s first mobile quantum ground station and conducted an encrypted data transmission in Jinan, Shandong Province. China launched QUESS, nicknamed “Micius” after a 5th Century B.C. Chinese philosopher and scientist, in 2016.
According to a source of the Jinan city government, the mobile ground station linked with QUESS at around 23:31 Monday when the satellite was approximately 500 km from the ground. The test successfully wrapped up after the ground station received encrypted data from the satellite for nearly eight minutes. The mobile quantum ground station, the world’s first of the kind, weighs slightly over 80 kg. It was jointly developed by the University of Science and Technology of China, QuantumCTek Co., Ltd. and the Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology.
An experimental quantum communication network in Jinan has been connected to the Beijing-Shanghai backbone network, the world’s first secure quantum communication backbone network.