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Theme of the Week Did You Know? On October 18, GPS interference wreaked havoc at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. The nearly two day outage prompted the closure of a runway and has stumped experts. On January 21, a similar mysterious GPS outage disrupted flights at Denver International Airport for over thirty hours. For three days around March 5, flights were disrupted in Finland due to jamming that is suspected to have originated in Russia. In June 2019 a GPS outage near Salt Lake City nearly caused a passenger airplane accident. On January 26, 2016, a simple GPS operator error shut down emergency radios and nearly crashed networks around the world. A European program over three years tracked over 450,000 reported GPS outages, of which 59,000 were suspected of being caused by deliberate interference. No, this the first you are hearing about this? That is because GPS outages are not systematically tracked, much less reported to the public. The media has started to report on Russia's jamming and threats to blow up GPS as part of their Ukraine coverage. But local outages that are disrupting travel, communications, and power grids, never make it into the news. This spurred the US National PNT Advisory Board to ask the Department of Transportation “to warn the public as soon as possible when GPS services were being disrupted.” As it stands today, there is no incentive to be responsive to commercial users. Conversely, there is no recourse for commercial users impacted by outages. A commercial alternative is needed. Last Week's Theme: A Sputnik Moment Industry News Another three GPS satellites were ordered from Lockheed for only $744M, bringing the total to $2.5B for seven latest gen GPS satellites. But even at that price point GPS is still a fragile system. Open collaboration is encouraged to develop a quantum internet, which includes working together on quantum networking test beds. In Tennessee, EPB and Qubitekk announced a test bed for “America’s first industry-led, commercially available quantum network.” In New York, Stony Brook University announced a new Quantum Internet Test Bed. And Singapore just opened a Quantum Networks Experience Centre. The sun is nearing a peak of a coronal mass ejections (CME) cycle, which have been blamed for the loss of 40 Starlink satellites and even train delays. The More You Know... Last week we highlighted how China is determined to win a new space race with the United States. Consider this: A US Space Force general warned that China "could catch up and surpass us, absolutely. The progress they've made has been stunning." China recently announced their lunar and deep space ambitions, including a permanent moon base by 2035. Meanwhile, NASA hopes to get a crew to the moon “as early as 2025 or 2026,” and Europe is planning a lunar lander “capable of routinely dispatching science payloads and cargo to the Moon throughout the 2030s.” China is the undisputed leader in satellite quantum communications. To maintain an edge in this race, US government officials are starting to look towards the commercial sector. Earlier this year the US Space Systems Command established the Commercial Services Office with the stated intention to “exploit what we have, buy what we can and only build what we must.” This also includes looking at commercial options for GPS: “We see markets emerging for alternative PNT solutions even though GPS is inherently governmental today.”

Theme of the Week A Sputnik Moment The new space race is underway, and in many respects China has taken a lead. China is the clear leader in quantum satellites as shown in this list compiled by Russ Fein. They performed ground-breaking quantum experiments on their 2016 Micius satellite, and recently launched their third quantum satellite with more on the way. While the US has one quantum payload in orbit, it does not have a quantum link with the ground. This is well behind quantum satellites already underway in China, Europe, Singapore, Canada, and UK. At least the US is the leader in position, navigation and timing (PNT) satellites - for now. While GPS has been the PNT standard for nearly five decades, China is catching up fast. Their BeiDou constellation of “24 MEO satellites, three Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites, and three Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO) satellites" may offer “global decimeter-level positioning and navigation” and “underwater, indoor and deep space coverage.” This is better than GPS, which is accurate to 2 meters (20 decimeters) in open sky conditions. But clearly the US has a plan to keep up - right? Last Week's Theme: A Modern Horror Story Achievements Thank you Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) and Business Finland for the opportunity to join the Colorado quantum delegation to Finland! Great chance to explore collaboration opportunities with the Finnish quantum community. Industry News China released a "China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in the New Era” white paper that claims that BeiDou “has been built into a world-class navigation system” and it’s next generation design “will give unprecedented accuracy and coverage for a range of services, including mobile phone access,” and “would extend its services to include underwater communications and deep space.” Meanwhile, Europe announced a new LEO PNT satellite constellation to augment their Galileo constellation. China is also surging in quantum computing patents, increasing from “137 as of September 2020 to 804 by October 2022.” China now accounts for 15 percent of global quantum computing patents, behind the United States (40 percent), and ahead of Japan (11 percent). A “State of the Quantum 2022” report claims that “shows that 91% of business leaders are investing or planning to invest in quantum computing, a field in which private investment has grown 500% from a total of $0.4 billion in 2017 to $2.2 billion in 2021.” This is corroborated by a separate survey where 81% of organizations claimed to have plans or candidates for quantum computing by next year. According to NASA, we are now in the “Decade of Light” where optical communications enables new satellite systems, “but the 2030s will be the Decade of Quantum. There are a lot of technologies that are being developed now to enable us to move seamlessly to the next decade.” Another good QED-C Quantum Marketplace webinar focused on Quantum Networks as a follow up to a previous webinar, including quantum networking leaders like AWS, GE, Verizon, Accenture, Deloitte, and EPB. Conferences Time and Money Conference, January 17, New York, New York Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, March 13 - 16, Vancouver, Canada Satellite 2023, March 13 - 16, Washington DC Space Symposium, April 17 - 20, Colorado Springs, CO The More You Know... Goodbye leap second! The world’s timekeepers voted recently to stop using leap seconds, an artifice to help keep official time in line with the rotation of the Earth. If the Earth maintained a rotation rate of 86,400 seconds per day this wouldn’t be necessary. But the Earth has a habit of slowing down, or, lately, speeding up. Network operators have longed argued that we should scrap the leap second. Even a discontinuity as small as one second can wreak havoc with their networks: “The leap second change triggered a massive Reddit outage in 2012, as well as related problems at Mozilla, LinkedIn, Yelp and airline booking service Amadeus. In 2017, a leap second glitch at network infrastructure company Cloudflare knocked a fraction of customers' servers offline.” Fortunately, the main source of network timing comes from GPS, which doesn't use leap seconds. Because of this GPS time has diverged by 18 seconds from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). But at least that gap won't change going forward.

David Mitlyng Theme of the Week A Modern Horror Story - Part 1 Last Halloween we presented a true-life scary tale: You wake up. Emergency and rescue radios are down. Your location app is offline and planes are grounded worldwide. You attempt to go shopping, but the credit card isn't working. The ATM is down, too. As the day progresses both cell and internet service is lost, stores and restaurants are closed, and you can't even get gas. By the next morning the power is out. The cause? GPS is down. Like any good horror story, here come's the sequel: A Modern Horror Story - Part 2 Unfortunately, this doomsday scenario seems closer than ever. Since then the Russia rolled into Ukraine and promptly started jamming GPS. They launched anti-satellite missiles and threatened to blow up GPS and commercial satellites. Local GPS outages have grounded flights at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport, Denver International Airport, and Finland. The fear is real and governments around the world are working to prevent this. Last Week's Theme: Time as National Infrastructure Industry News As mentioned previously, GPS interference caused the FAA to reroute DFW air traffic. The nearly two day outage prompted the closure of a runway and has stumped experts. The war in Ukraine has allowed commercial space companies to provide critical support, including satellite imagery and communication links. Russia has responded with cyberattacks, jamming, and even threats to blow up commercial satellites. Two European Commission-sponsored quantum network initiatives were announced: the Quantum Internet Alliance and the HYPERSPACE research project. A couple of articles look at the impact of quantum computers: an article about military applications for quantum computing, and an Economist paper on commercial applications for quantum computing: “Overhyped or Underestimated: Preparing for a Quantum Future” One application for quantum computing is cracking public key infrastructure, the so-called Y2Q. The US government is taking steps to prepare, including issuing an executive order, two national security memorandums (NSM-8 and NSM-10), and the introduction of the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act (H.R.7535). Meanwhile the Chicago Quantum Exchange hosted a voting demonstration using quantum secure communications. Quantum is endlessly fascinating but hard to understand, so be careful where you get your information. For example, maybe avoid the quantum mysticism on TikTok. 💼 Conferences International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany UK Quantum Technology Showcase, November 11, London, England Slush 2022, November 17 - 18, Helsinki, Finland Time and Money Conference, January 17, New York, New York Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, March 13 - 16, Vancouver, Canada 🎓 The More You Know... Spooky Action at a Distance - Part 2 The famous Einstein quote "spooky action at a distance" expressed his disbelief that the apparent "non-local" action of measuring certain (entangled) quantum states was a real effect. Einstein favored the idea that hidden local variables are at work and capable of removing these non-local effects. The implication being that quantum mechanics was an incomplete description of reality that resulting from averaging over these local hidden variables. The 2022 Nobel prize in physics was awarded to scientists that are pioneers in experimentally testing the idea of local hidden variables through clever experiments utilizing entangled photons. These experiments used a mathematical relation developed by John Stewart Bell. Now known as the Bell inequality, it showed that any such hoped for local hidden variable theory could not reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics. Thus, Bell's inequality said it was possible in principle to experimentally test if the actual world corresponds to the predictions of quantum mechanics or of some deeper theory that uses local, hidden variables. What seemed to be a philosophical question was now potentially an experimental one. The three newest physics laureates pioneered ways to experimentally test Bell's inequality. The results have all shown that Bell's Inequality is clearly violated, thus experimentally ruling out all physical theories using local hidden variables. The consequences of this for understanding quantum mechanics are that if we want to imagine a deeper theory that explains the outcomes of individual experiments (thus removing or explaining the fundamental randomness of quantum mechanics) then we're forced to believe in "spooky action at a distance", i.e. quantum-nonlocality. Viable alternatives to this are at least as "spooky". We can deny that quantum systems (and by extension everything​!) have properties independent of how we choose to measure them. This view implies that at least some measurements of quantum systems are acts of creation -- not merely processes to reveal preexisting information (examples are neo-Copenhagen and QBism interpretations). Our other possibility is to take the view that all possible outcomes of every quantum measurement actually do exist, but the different outcomes define (mostly independent) parallel branches of an ever-expanding universe. While we as humans can only perceive a single branch among them. This is roughly the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Which flavor of spookiness is the "correct" way of understanding quantum mechanics? We don't yet have a way of experimentally distinguishing them. So, the quest goes on! The strange saga of Zombie Sat - Part 2 Last year we reported on the story of the infamous Galaxy 15 "Zombie Sat", a satellite that decided to stopped taking orders over a decade ago. For eight torturous months the unresponsive satellite lumbered across the GEO arc before finally rebooting. Intelsat put the satellite back in service and the zombie was re-born again. Well, in another twist in the saga, Galaxy 15 recently became a zombie once again. Rather than trying to reanimate the corpse of this satellite, this time Intelsat has decided to put it out of its misery.

Theme of the Week Time as National Infrastructure Nobody in the early days of GPS understood how important it would be. The expectation was that it would provide position and timing for the US military. Now, nearly every person and country in the world rely on it. This reliance has alarmed government and industry officials and inspired other countries to build their own global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). What is less well-known is that many countries are building their own resilient timing networks. For example, the UK created the National Timing Centre two years ago after a review estimated that the loss of timing from a GPS outage could “impact the UK economy by over £1 billion per day.” Other countries are following suit, including China, Korea, Norway, and India. Meanwhile, in the US the telecommunication industry continues to push for a National Timing Architecture. Not only is it necessary to protect critical infrastructure, it also improves network performance: “The more precise, resilient, and stable a timing source, the more information can be moved through a given piece of spectrum. According to network engineers, “better timing equals found money.” Last Week's Theme: Scrubbed Xairos is Presenting on “Quantum Communications” at APSCC 2022. You can register here to watch live. Industry News If you are flying into Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport, be advised that a GPS outage is impacting flights. While it is too early to say, it may be related to a suspected intentional jamming event that occurred last January in Denver. Outside Ukraine and the Middle East, Norway may be the “the most jammed place on the planet." So they hosted a GPS jamming event and just published their initial results (note: it is in Norwegian). The UK-based NATO Shipping Centre (NSC) is warning of the “threat of GPS jamming, AIS spoofing, communications jamming, electronic interference and cyber-attacks” to ships in the Black Sea. SES announced the Eagle-1 Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) satellite in a partnership with the European Space Agency, while SpeQtral and Thales announced a space-based QKD partnership. The future date when quantum computers crack existing public key infrastructure is referred to as Y2Q. It is still a long time before quantum computers reach this capability, though some believe it will happen sooner than expected. In the meantime, IBM is working with Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) and Vodaphone to prepare for Y2Q and hosting industry roundtables, and NATO is developing their own Y2Q-resistant systems. A US Congressman makes the case that the US military needs to leverage commercial companies to create a metaphorical “Defense Valley.” TechCrunch asks “Is Silicon Valley really losing its crown?” Data suggests that Silicon Valley startups used to pull in nearly half of all venture funding in the US, and is now 1/3. Conferences APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany UK Quantum Technology Showcase, November 11, London, England Slush 2022, November 17 - 18, Helsinki, Finland Time and Money Conference, January 17, New York,New York Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, March 13 - 16, Vancouver, Canada The More You Know... The 2022 Nobel prize in physics has been jointly awarded to three titans of quantum physics, Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger. These scientists “performed experiments utilizing entangled photons to resolve a long-standing debate in the early history of quantum mechanics." Entanglement as a consequence of quantum mechanics was pointed out and elaborated on by Albert Einstein and colleagues in the famous 1935 EPR paper. But Einstein found the idea of nonlocal entanglement, the so-called “spooky action at a distance”, deeply problematic since, while it doesn't directly violate relativity, it certainly violates the spirit of local influences and causes at the conceptual heart of relativity. Because of this Einstein favored the idea that a local hidden variable was at work such that quantum mechanics was an incomplete description of reality resulting from an averaging over these local hidden variables. Nearly 30 years later, the physicist John Stewart Bell derived a mathematical relation, known as the Bell inequality, that demonstrated that any such local hidden variable theory could not reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics. Thus, Bell's theorem said it was possible in principle to experimentally test if the actual world corresponds to the predictions of quantum mechanics or of some deeper theory that uses local, hidden variables. What seemed to be a philosophical question was now potentially an experimental one. However, "Bell’s inequality, while massively significant as a theoretical construct, was not at first of much use experimentally; the result itself of a thought experiment, it couldn’t be squared with practical detector technology. The three 2022 physics laureates found ways to circumvent those difficulties, and to advance studies of entanglement firmly into the realm of experimental science." It is important to note that all of the progress that has been made in quantum information science and quantum technologies owes a huge debt to all of these pioneers that dared to seriously ask such a fundamental question about reality, and who were not dissuaded by accusations of the worthlessness of their research by many of their influential contemporaries. To learn more, please email us.

Theme of the Week Scrubbed Once again the Artemis 1 moon mission is delayed and likely won’t launch this year. Even without a Category 4 hurricane, Artemis was supposed to launch in August. In that time they scrubbed three times while SpaceX has launched six times in Florida alone. Oh, Artemis. You never had a chance, not with such overprotective and risk-averse parents. Same with GPS. GPS satellites cost over $350M with nearly decade-long delivery schedules. A commercial company could launch multiple successive generations with that. But despite the $4.1B total price tag there are still vulnerability concerns. And the improvements are all geared towards military users; commercial time and position accuracy hasn’t changed in decades. Government agencies simply aren’t known for innovation, speed, and efficiency. Something better is needed. Last Week's Theme: Going Nowhere Fast Industry News On January 21, 2022, Air Traffic Control issued a Notice to Airman “of problems with GPS reception spanning about 8,000 square miles in the Denver area,” including interference around Denver International Airport impacting aircraft from the ground up to 40,000 feet above sea level. So what happened? The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation will be released in an upcoming report “GPS Interference Happens,” and has so far announced: “the incident lasted for 33.5 hours impacts varied across infrastructures and applications; some users who were physically shielded from the interference source were able to maintain service some wireline and cellular providers who had timing backup systems were unaffected wireline and cellular providers with no backups suffered, as did some with rubidium backup clocks; the clocks drifted away from each other over the course of the outage and caused cell towers to isolate.” In response to Russia’s cyber disruptions of satellite service in Ukraine, Europe announced that they are looking to strengthen their space resilience. Starlink helped provide critical communications into Ukraine, and now are looking to provide connectivity for Iran after authorities shut down the internet. The US Senate unanimously passed a three-year re-authorization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, so now the resolution goes to the US House of Representatives. Conferences Quantum Industry Day, October 4, Zurich, Switzerland ICSO 2022, October 6 - 7, Dubrovnik, Croatia APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA Time and Money Conference, January, New York Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, March 13 - 16, Vancouver, Canada The More You Know... One comment we hear a lot: “Isn't GPS good enough?” All networks and power grids rely on timing from GPS; if it ever went down, the damage could be catastrophic. How bad? On January 26, 2016, we almost found out. The US spends nearly $2B a year to ensure that the catastrophic doesn’t happen. But radiation hardening and on-orbit spares can’t protect against local jamming and interference. There are over 100,000 outages reported a year in Europe alone. Jamming in Eastern Europe impacted flights out of Finland, and a recent mysterious case impacted flights out of Denver International Airport. But it remains a nice juicy target for adversaries. Because of this, many countries have already started their own sovereign GPS replacements. But what is less known: there is now a movement for GPS-independent national resilient timing systems.

Theme of the Week Going Nowhere Fast For two decades we have been waiting for a replacement for GPS. When the infamous Volpe Report came out in 2001, GPS was already deemed critical but vulnerable. In the two decades since there have been nothing but talk. And studies. And lots of hand wringing. Everyone else is moving on. Russia, China, and Europe have their own (possibly better) GPS. With their own system, they don’t think twice about jamming, spoofing, or threatening GPS with missiles. Spurred on by Russia's sabre rattling in particular, there is finally momentum. For one, there is funding to build a replacement (though it may be geared toward military needs). There is also a convergence of technology to build something much better. But there is also a pent-up market need. For all the talk about self-driving vehicles, 6G, and quantum networks, they will not happen with GPS. Something better is needed. Last Week's Theme: Freedom to Grow Industry News There has long been concern that Ligado Networks plans to launch with spectrum that is adjacent to the GPS frequencies, potentially causing interference. To assess this concern, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released a report claiming "that most receivers used for civil aviation, general navigation, timing, or cellular purposes will not experience “significant harmful interference”...However, the report admits, some will be affected." The DOT has been steadily monitoring GPS interference reports of maritime GPS interference. The Space Development Agency (SDA) is working with the Department of Defense to develop the National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed (NExT) initiative. This could lead to the launch of test of government-furnished alternative PNT payloads in 2024. To prepare for any electronic warfare including satellite jamming, the Space Force is developing "Black Skies" and "Red Skies" training exercises. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program remains at risk of being defunded by the end of the month. This despite a 2019 Defense Department study that found that SBIR funds delivered a "22-to-1 return on investment, $28 billion in sales to the military and $347 billion in economic impact over 23 years." 💼 Conferences IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO Quantum Industry Day, October 4, Zurich, Switzerland ICSO 2022, October 6 - 7, Dubrovnik, Croatia APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA The More You Know... Recently the Department of Transportation (DOT) hosted a Complementary PNT Industry Roundtable. The goals of the roundtable were laid out in the opening remarks: "Critical infrastructure sectors such as communication, banking, the electric grid, and dams rely on the promise of improved accuracy and resilience of PNT technologies...We also know as GPS technology advances, the number of threats to the system increase and we need to take the bullseye off of GPS." But the industry representatives weren't impressed. "They have been studying this for over twenty years. The Volpe report came out in 2001. And there have been lots of studies since then. All have just been refinements of those original findings.”

Theme of the Week Freedom to Grow Not long ago, space was inextricably tied to governments. In this era, old space companies stayed in their narrow government-sponsored lanes. But new space has been freed from these shackles and are blazing their own trails, including: Delivering crucial communications and imagery for Ukraine. Taking over the space station and lunar missions. Working with cell phone companies on universal coverage, including the recent SpaceX and T-Mobile, Apple and Globalstar, and other cell/satellite collaborations. While these tie-ups may seem obvious, they never would have happened in the old space era. GPS remains the lone holdout; a Cold War relic that is now too pervasive to change. Its timing signal remains indispensable for networks, but stops at the rooftop. A true Global Timing Service will need space+terrestrial for universal time distribution. A new commercial solution is needed. Last Week's Theme: GTS vs GPS Achievements Welcome to Nino De Falcis! Nino is joining Xairos as Timing Advisor on our Advisory Board, bringing over three decades of experience in the timing and synchronization industry to advise Xairos’ go-to-market strategy. Check out Nino’s presentation on smart grid timing here. Seed round is closing September 30! We will hold our first investor Q&A session this Wednesday, September 21, at 4 pm ET. You can register here or add to your Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar or Yahoo Calendar. There is still an opportunity to invest so please email us to learn more. Proof-of-Concept (POC) complete but additional tests and improvements continue. Check out this simple explainer video to learn more about our core technology. Working on overseas projects and partnerships with a busy travel stretch through the end of the year. As part of our work with Louisiana State University, check out Stav Halder's presentation: "Global Precision Time Distribution via Satellite-Based Entangled Photon Sources" Industry News According to the US Department of Transportation, maritime GPS interference seems to be on the rise. Not a big surprise most of the reported issues are around Europe and Middle East, but GPS outages in the US are still a concern. Quantum computers will one day crack existing public key infrastructure, which spurred the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to evaluate Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms. But security issues were found, forcing NIST to issue “a call for additional PQC algorithms to use for digital signatures." So the race is on between the thorough NIST selection process and quantum computers. Meanwhile, the US National Security Agency (NSA) isn’t waiting for the final selections. The NSA published a Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite 2.0 (CNSA 2.0) Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) which specifies “which encryption algorithms should be used for owners, operators and vendors to use when working with classified information critical to military and intelligence activities” that included the NIST Round 3 PQC selections. Are quantum computers that far along? There are some that claim that Google's announcement of quantum supremacy in 2019 is not that big of a deal as "a team of Chinese scientists have developed an algorithm to perform the computation reasonably efficiently on 512 conventional GPUs.” A new space coalition was announced at the second US National Space Council “that will focus on increasing the space industry’s capacity to meet the rising demand for the skilled technical workforce.” Conferences ION GNSS+ 2022, September 19 - 23, Denver, CO IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO Quantum Industry Day, October 4, Zurich, Switzerland ICSO 2022, October 6 - 7, Dubrovnik, Croatia APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA The More You Know... Our Timing Advisor Nino De Falcis asks: "Can smart grids be protected from PNT cyberattacks?” While it may seem counterintuitive, modern power grids require timing for: "charging points require precise timestamping of the massive amount of data they generate to balance power demand and supply.” “rerouting power flows away from transmission outages, to locating power line faults, and for synchronizing distributed control and protection systems. Without highly accurate timing and synchronization, power grids are vulnerable to partial outages and even complete blackouts.” Because of this, the standards for timing accuracy is getting more stringent: “The syncrophaser now demands accuracy better than 1 microsecond. For fault location, we’re now at 100 nanoseconds… This is a big change from just five years ago when accuracy in all these categories was firmly in the millisecond range, and it’s a high bar that needs to be maintained by next-generation redundant systems, should GPS or ground-based timing become compromised.” But the bigger challenge is meeting new Department of Homeland Security resiliency requirements. At the highest level “This means they must function for long periods in the absence of a GPS timing source, or when ground-based timing sources have been otherwise compromised.”

Theme of the Week GTS vs GPS Despite the name, Global Positioning System (GPS) provides more than position; it also provides time. The GPS architecture requires that multiple satellites are in view to resolve both position and time together. The weak signals work well in an open field - not so well in urban canyons or behind walls. Fortunately, there isn't a critical need for position knowledge if you are inside a building; you should already know where you are. But accurate timing is absolutely critical inside data centers and deep in network server rooms. To address this, a complex time distribution network is necessary, enabled by a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem of timing and synchronization hardware providers. But on the outer shell of these spaghetti networks is still a Grandmaster Clock tied to GPS. When GPS falters, the whole timing network degrades. And all the network engineers can do is hold their collective breath until it comes back. A true Global Timing System (GTS) is much more than just satellites. Industry News To address concerns about GPS jamming, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) launched the Harmonious Rook project to “address the need for scalable, persistent awareness of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) disruptions across the globe,” and will join an Army training exercise. Part of the problem is that GPS interference events are not rigorously tracked. The European GNSS Agency (GSA) launched the STRIKE3 program to try to assess this. Over three years they found 59,000 deliberate interference signals out of 450,000+ interference signals, prompting them to develop a GNSS interference detection network. The GAO “DOD Is Developing Navigation Systems But Is Not Measuring Overall Progress” report has led to the belief that “the real problem with DOD PNT is not a lack of leadership, but rather too much. “If everyone is in charge, no one is,” commented one retired senior military officer familiar with the issue." NASA announced a Quantum Sensing (QS) Workshop to assess their “needs and competencies related to QS and compare agency capabilities with those available externally including industry, academia, and other government agencies.” The success of commercial space in supporting Ukraine has not escaped the notice of US government agencies, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA): “The war in Ukraine has been a significant driver of interest in commercial space capabilities, as the intelligence community utilizes commercial, space-based data collection to understand the ongoing conflict,” according to a NGA official. The recent US Department of Defense (DoD) “State of the Space Industrial Base” report “calls on the government to accelerate the adoption of commercial technologies and services to maintain dominance in space,” to “foster and leverage commercial innovation in order to not be overtaken by China as the dominant space power.” The More You Know... China now has three quantum satellites in orbit, with plans for four more: 17 August 2016 - launch of Micius QKD demonstration satellite 15 September 2016 - launch of Quantum terminal on Space Lab Tiangong-2 29 July 2022 - launch of quantum satellite Jinan 1 Elsewhere around the world other quantum satellite projects are on the drawing board: German consortium is developing quantum sensor technology “to achieve high-precision attitude control of miniaturized satellites.” UK's Arqit is building two QKD Satellites launching 2023 with European Space Agency support. Singapore's SpeQtral and UK's RAL Space are working on the Speqtre QKD mission to launch in 2024. European consortium led by SES is working on QUARTZ. Canadian Space Agency is working on the QEYSSAT mission being built by Honeywell. German Space Agency DLR is working on QUBE. UK Space Agency is working on ROKS and QUARC. Notice what country isn't on that list? Sure, there are plans to launch quantum hardware and NASA is considering industry options. But, as the Ukraine conflict has shown us, innovation comes from commercial US space. Then why does the US government wants to de-fund these companies? The immensely successful Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is still at risk of coming to an end after forty successful years.

Theme of the Week Global Timing System (GTS) A fundamental flaw of the half-century-old GPS is that it tries to do too much for too many. It was originally designed to provide position and time for the US military. But it was a victim of its own success and now most of the modern world relies on GPS. Because of this broad range of needs, a one-size-fits-all replacement is way too difficult. This is a problem for networks that rely on timing from GPS, which has an accuracy topped out at 30 nanoseconds. This accuracy enabled 4G LTE and is barely good enough for 5G (with expensive equipment). But 6G networks need sub-nanosecond accuracy. So do efficient data centers and quantum networks. A “better” GPS (whatever that means) won’t get there. What is needed is new technologies and architecture. What is needed is a dedicated Global Timing System (GTS). Last Week's Theme: Jack of All Trades, Master of None Industry News In addition to a recent quantum satellite called Jinan 1, China also demonstrated a compact QKD terminal on their Space Lab Tiangong-2. These quantum payloads are more compact than the original quantum payload demonstrated on Micius in 2016 that was “about the size of a large refrigerator... weighed around 130 kg and required 130 W of power.” In contrast, the Tiangong-2 quantum payload “weighed around 60 kg, required 80 W of power and measured about the size of two microwave ovens,” while the Jinan 1 quantum satellite “weighs about a sixth the weight of the Micius satellite and contains a QKD system that is about a third of the size of that demonstrated [aboard Tiangong-2].” So approximately 20 kg for a quantum payload on a 100 kg satellite that was "designed to carry out real-time satellite-to-ground QKD experiments, representing another important step toward low-cost and practical quantum satellite constellations." Chinese researchers also recently demonstrated quantum entanglement between two memory devices located 12.5 km apart, as a further step towards the development of a quantum network. According to the researchers: “In 2020, we published a paper in which we demonstrate the entanglement of two quantum memories via a fiber link of 50 km. In that experiment, both two memories we used were located within one lab and thus not fully independent. The next step in our research was to make the two memories fully independent, while placing a long distance between them.” Another solar storm passed by the Earth last Wednesday, peaking at around a G3 on a scale to goes up to G5. A G3-level storm is considered “mostly manageable without risk of power outages.” But it could be worse: NASA reported that the last G5-level storm impacted "about 50% to 60% of their satellite fleet.” But this storm may have impacted the Galaxy 15 satellite. If that sounds familiar, Galaxy 15 was the infamous Zombie Sat that we highlighted in our Halloween newsletter. New space companies have shown their value in the war in Ukraine, and are also forcing the US government to consider rules for unique space missions: “We believe the new space age needs new rules. Because here on the ground, the regulatory frameworks we rely on to shape space policy were largely built for another era.” Because GPS jamming is so pervasive, the Department of Defense (DoD) is working on “commercial technologies that could help detect GPS jamming or other activities that disrupt satellite-based navigation.” Meanwhile, the Army is working to augment their Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) to plan for operations in a GPS-denied environment. And there are also private efforts to create a real-time map of the GPS outages. Conferences ION GNSS+ 2022, September 19 - 23, Denver, CO IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO Quantum Industry Day, October 4, Zurich, Switzerland APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA The More You Know... GTS Part II When people think of GPS, they think of maps. But GPS is actually more valuable as a clock for the world. GPS was designed to provide both position and time, but this makes it expensive: you need multiple satellites in view to resolve both together. One idea to improve on GPS is to split off position and time into separate architectures. Position is the easier problem to solve; all you need is a terrestrial beacon or landmark. But time is hard. It is always shifting. Clocks are always falling out of sync. A reference clock is a long ways away. And distance makes the sync harder. And as networks require better timing to increase throughput and efficiency, the problem is getting worse. Syncing two clocks to within a few seconds is easy. Syncing to a nanosecond (one billionth of a second) or better is much harder.

Time to Save the World Timing synchronization provides the grease for efficient networks. This efficiency helps reduce power consumption, and, by extension, harmful emissions. While it is difficult to show the direct link between timing accuracy and power consumption, some case studies show the potential. For example, timing in data centers reduces the effort to work with distributed databases. A joint Facebook and NVIDIA project showed that “making the timekeeping 80x more precise made a distributed database run 3x faster - an incredible performance boost on the same server hardware, just from keeping more accurate and more reliable time.” This inspired them to set up the Time Appliance Project, stating that “Time is a key element to get the highest efficiency in a distributed system.” The benefits of synchronization also extend to power grids. A Norwegian power utility estimates that synchronized digital substations in power grids could help recover 9% of their energy, and the Swedish Transport Administration estimates that phase synchronization could result in a 1 TWh/year potential energy savings. Better timing = more efficiency = lower power consumption = reduced emissions = Save the World. Last Week's Theme: Timing is Everything Industry News China recently launched six new LEO satellites to provide quantum key distribution (QKD) from space as part of a larger global QKD network and a follow up to their groundbreaking quantum satellite launched in 2016. Buried within the $280B CHIPS and Science Act is $153M per year for quantum research, including $100M/year for a "Quantum Network Infrastructure," In addition, the US “Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act” is moving through Congress with the intent to force the “migration of Federal Government information technology systems to quantum-resistant cryptography.” The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, also known as “America’s Seed Fund,” is in danger of expiring because it was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Research shows that SBIR and STTR “generated a 22 to 1 return on investment, including $347 billion in total economic impact and created more than 1.5 million jobs between 1995 and 2012,” an incredible return on the $4B/year investment. Meanwhile, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that they awarded a record $154.2B to small businesses, an $8B increase from last years. This represents nearly 27.2% of total federal contracting funds and “has supported over one million jobs in the American economy.” Following on news that VC fundraising in 2022 is on pace to surpass last year’s record, there are signs that investment is moving out of the Silicon Valley amid claims that remote work is “profoundly weakening the Silicon Valley network effect.” "What if your internet connection used single photons to transmit bits of information? You would be enjoying the unprecedented features of a quantum network, including access to quantum computing nodes and high security." Check out the QED-C The Landscape of Quantum Networking webinar to learn more. Conferences Optics + Photonics, August 21 - 25, San Diego, CA ION GNSS+ 2022, September 19 - 23, Denver, CO IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany The More You Know... Did it feel like your day went by especially fast on Wednesday, June 29? That's because the Earth had the shortest day on record, completing one rotation in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. In general, over long periods of time the Earth's rotation slows down by a tiny bit. To keep the 24-hour day synced with the rotation, scientists will occasionally add leap seconds to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the international time standard. However, in recent years the Earth's rotation has been mysteriously speeding up. So scientists may need to subtract a leap second rather than add one! But it doesn't matter to network operators like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon. They want to scrap the leap second altogether because any discontinuous jump of that magnitude can wreak havoc with their networks. For the same reason, GPS time -- the current source of network timing -- doesn't use leap seconds That's why GPS time now differs from UTC time by 18 seconds.

Theme of the Week Timing is Everything GPS was the borne out of the space age nearly a half a century ago. But for two decades we have known that something better is needed. Now, with the advancement of four core technologies, the conditions are ripe: Cheap access to space Commercial quantum communication systems The golden age of atomic clocks Ubiquitous space-based optical communications hardware The need for a better global timing system has been around since networks went digital. But you can't bake the perfect cake until the ingredients are ready. Timing is everything. Last Week's Theme: How to Transfer Time Industry News “Why Isn’t Russia jamming GPS harder in Ukraine?” There has been local jamming in Ukraine and even around Finland and Norway, but “Russian interference with GPS in Ukraine has not been nearly as aggressive as many observers had expected.” Last week a cybersecurity firm found a security flaw in a GPS vehicle tracker built by a Chinese firm that “if exploited, cut off a vehicle’s fuel, physically stop it, or surveil its movement.” This week the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert on this tracker that potentially is used in 1.5M vehicles including 420,000 government vehicles. The fragility of GPS has spurred countries to prepare countermeasures. South Korea has started developing their own PNT network and is running a civil drill with GPS jamming. A quantum internet that will network quantum computers is likely decades away, but National Defense University researchers published a roadmap on how to get there. Only halfway through 2022, VC fundraising is set to surpass 2021 record, according to a PitchBook analysis. According to Euroconsult,“nearly a ton of smallsats will be launched per day between 2022-2031 as over 18,500 smallsats are placed on orbit.” A new Strategic Options task force was established on the Defense Science Board (DSB) to "rebalance intervention cost and benefit" and restore the U.S. military's "operational dominance." Conferences Small Satellite Conference, August 6 - 11, Logan, Utah Optics + Photonics, August 21 - 25, San Diego, CA ION GNSS+ 2022, September 19 - 23, Denver, CO IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany The More You Know... All networks rely on timing from GPS. So what happens when GPS goes down? Well, you hope it comes back online. And quickly. An outage of more than a few hours would result in the degradation, then loss, of the network. If you want your networks to last more than a few hours, you need to build in resiliency against an outage, known as holdover. And that can get expensive. There are a number of ways to do this, using multiple sources of timing independent of GPS. The two main options: Add very stable clocks, or multiple spatially separated GPS receivers, throughout the network. But that requires additional hardware as well as the design of a timing network. Buy a box that has multiple stable clocks disciplined to the GPS timing signal when it is available. But these units are expensive - exotic car expensive.

Theme of the Week How to Transfer Time Imagine you want to synchronize your clock to a master clock. As we mentioned previously, synchronizing clocks that are close to each other is easy. The real challenge is synchronization over long distances. For this, you need time transfer. GPS is currently the main source of time synchronization over global distances. Each GPS satellite knows its position and time, and broadcasts it to the user. This signal is also used to calculate the distance to the satellite (see below). You will need this information from multiple satellites to triangulate your position and time. But if you only care about time, then one GPS satellite will work. Instead of calculating distance, you can calculate the time of flight from the satellite, and add it to the satellite time. Other time transfer methods work in a similar fashion: a reference clock sends a stable RF, ethernet, or optical signal, which the receiver uses to calculate the travel time. The accuracy of the time transfer is impacted by the signal quality, among other things, which tend to degrade over long distances. Last Week's Theme: Commercial Space Steps Up Industry News Before you can have people landing on the moon, you need a lunar GPS. China, Europe, and the US all recently announced separate plans for lunar position, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellites for the moon. Last week we mentioned the suspected Russian jamming of GPS in Norway, but a recent article (in Norwegian translated here) suggests the jamming is coordinated with cyber attacks. Sometimes the problems with GPS are with shoddy ground terminals. Researchers found a security flaw in a GPS vehicle tracker built by a Chinese firm that “can be easily exploited to track and remotely cut the engines of at least a million vehicles around the world.” Another solar storm hit the Earth on Thursday. So far the impacts have been minimal, but the disturbance could make “GPS reception a bit dicey, especially near dawn and dusk.” A recent report claims that the “U.S. remains the leading country in quantum computing development, but China is aiming to catch up, with $10 billion of investment claimed in the period to 2030.” The US budget for quantum information science (QIS) research was roughly $900M in fiscal 2022, almost double the amount spent in 2019, with much of this funding from the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act. Despite the market downturn, venture investment is still holding up. According to PitchBook, US VC funds closed over $120B through the first half of 2022 propelled by “sustained momentum from the end of 2021,” and TechCrunch claims that “US venture capitalists have never had so much spare cash.” Meanwhile, investment in space startups dropped from $6.1B in Q2 2022 compared to $46.3B for all of 2021. Quantum communications technology can be used to securely deliver encryption keys, with another potential application: quantum-secure ATMs. Conferences Small Satellite Conference, August 6 - 11, Logan, Utah Optics + Photonics, August 21 - 25, San Diego, CA ION GNSS+ 2022, September 19 - 23, Denver, CO IEEE Quantum Week 2022, September 18 - 23, Broomfield, CO APSCC 2022, October 18 - 20, Seoul, Korea Tough Tech Summit, October 27 - 28, Boston, MA International Timing and Sync Forum, November 7 - 10, Dusseldorf, Germany The More You Know... How to Transfer Time Part II So how does time transfer from GPS work? The GPS signal contains a pseudorandom code (sequence of ones and zeros) that is sent to the receiver. The receiver knows this code and creates its own version. By comparing the offset from the satellite and the receiver code, you know the difference in time. This can be used to calculate distance using the speed of light, or the receiver time. Credit: Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University Other time transfer methods work in a similar fashion with added complexity to improve performance. But the accuracy is fundamentally limited by: Time of travel changes through the medium of travel. The ability to receive a good quality signal. The quality of the transmitter and receiver. The accuracy of the reference clock. In addition, for high accuracy time transfer between moving platforms (say, from a satellite like GPS), Doppler and relativistic effects must also be carefully taken into account.