Any Port in a Storm
Preparing for disaster is expensive - when the weather is fair.
When two major hurricanes pummeled the US, millions were without power or communications. 
Fortunately, commercial satellite services picked up the slack by providing early warning, mobile communications, and imagery that helped guide disaster relief.
While these satellites may sit high above the hurricane, they are not immune to space weather. Case in point: the recent coronal mass ejection (CME) that barreled into the Earth at 2.5 million mph giving us those brilliant Northern Lights. These solar storms can impact satellites and power grids (see below), and, like hurricanes:

• Their impact can be mitigated with early detection and warning, and preventative measures.
• They are seasonal; hurricane season typically peaks in September, while solar storms are reaching the peak of an eleven-year Solar Cycle.
• This solar cycle has been active, with 50 X-Class solar flares so far and 46 this year.
• The damage isn't just based on the ferocity of the storm, but whether it “makes landfall” or passes harmlessly by the Earth.

And that's where the similarities end. Unlike the local devastation caused by hurricanes, solar storms pose a more widespread danger to our global infrastructure.
When the Carrington Event hit in 1859, there were no satellites, power grids, or widespread communication networks that were in harm's way, other than a few fried telegraph stations.
Today there are over 12,000 satellites filling the skies, like sailboats afloat in the ocean. They can batten down the hatches, but there isn’t a safe harbor to drop anchor when the big storm comes.

Last Week's Theme: Timing is Everything (Pun Intended)

• Of our five active projects, one is wrapping up and three others have customer reviews in the month of October. While a lot of work, they ensure that we get direct customer feedback on our designs so we deliver something that meets their needs.
  • Project Apollo Quarterly Review is next week, with our main effort focused on a simulation model to assess the performance of our quantum timing system for a range of conditions and architectures, while also supporting partners that are developing a quantum payload and commercialization study.
  • Wrapped up a Design Review last week as part of Project Aristocles. Team is now prepping for a site survey at the largest of the three optical ground stations.
  • Preparing for the Project Chronos Preliminary Design Review this week at the I2A Expo Day.
  • A first version of the transportable optical ground station mobilizer has been built on Project Hermes, with new designs in work.
  • The Project Medusa free-space quantum time transfer demonstrations and testing are wrapping up and is now proceeding to the analysis phase. Videos and pictures are coming soon!
• Xairos is hiring a Photonics Lead and Software Engineer, so if you (or someone you know) is interested, drop us a line!
• Preparing for I2A Expo Day, International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO), IQT Quantum+AI, the International Timing and Sync Forum 2024, and UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase,

• A new Chinese paper claims that quantum computers "can optimize problem-solving in ways that make it possible to devise an attack on public key cryptography," a breakthrough that "poses a ‘real and substantial threat’ to password-protection mechanism employed across critical sectors."
• Citing a recent report that finds that “China leads in quantum communications…and matches the United States in sensing,” US Senators wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking for better support. “China is pursuing advances in quantum information science, some of which outstrip the efforts of the United States in scale and scope. To ensure that the United States maintains its technological advantage, DOD must have a strategic plan to integrate quantum sensing into our national security efforts.”
• NASA's Psyche satellite established a new deep space optical communications record of over 460M km, which is equivalent to the farthest distance between Earth and Mars. It hit a 6 Mbps data rate, which may seem slow, but is about 100 times the data rate of equivalent RF communications. 
• The US Space Force outlined a Resilient GPS (R-GPS) strategy for "rapidly-produced, resilient GPS navigation satellites with an objective to significantly reduce Size, Weight, Power, and Cost (SWaP-C), reduce production time, reduce time to orbit, optimize/maximize satellites per launch, and broaden launch vehicle compatibility."
• European Space Agency (ESA), with support from UK Space Agency, announced a new quantum satellite called Quantum Key Distribution Satellite (QKDSat).
• Is there negative time? Quantum researchers performed an experiment where "photons can seem to exit a material before entering it."

• I2A Expo Day, October 17, El Segundo, California
• International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO), October 21-25, Antibes Juan-les-Pins, France
• IQT Quantum+AI, October 29 - 30, New York, New York
• International Timing and Sync Forum 2024, November 4 - 7, Seville, Spain
• UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase, November 8, London, UK
• UK PNT Leadership Seminar, November 20, London, UK
• SLUSH, November 20 - 21, Helsinki, Finland
• Q2B24 Silicon Valley, December 10-12, Santa Clara, California
• Consumer Electronics Show, January 5 - 7, Las Vegas, NV
• Photonics West, January 25 - 30, San Francisco, CA
• Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems (WSTS), May 12 - 15, 2025, Savannah, GA
• European Navigation Conference, May 21 - 23, 2025, Wroclaw, Poland

During the last solar maximum, a series of solar storms dubbed the Halloween Solar Storm of 2003 led to blown transformers and impacted "approximately 59% of the Earth and Space science missions" including "the loss of the $640 million ADEOS-2 spacecraft." 
Fortunately, our ability to detect and prepare for incoming solar storms has increased immensely since then. While the impact from the recent solar storm is still under investigation, the May 2024 solar storm caused minimal damage: high voltage capacitors tripped in power grids, GPS accuracy "was unusable," and "around 5000 satellites" needed to perform orbit-boosting maneuvers to overcome "a more dense atmosphere."
The difference is that the "industry has taken a lot of precautionary measures...and that is why we got through the May event without any major serious consequences"
But yet, all of our critical infrastructure are still reliant on one satellite signal that rules modern life: GPS.
The good news: there are other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and governments are investing in backup options.
Unfortunately, "the United States does not have a Plan B for civilians should those signals get knocked out in space or on land."
Resiliency comes from having backup capability - not just internal redundancy on the satellite but investing in on-orbit or even on-ground spares. And that is a fundamental problem with GPS - it is hard to quickly replace a satellite that costs $329M and takes ten years to build.