Boeing’s Jay Lowell: Building the First Global Quantum Entanglement Networks
Boeing Principal Senior Technical Fellow John “Jay” Lowell closed the pre-lunch block with a focused update on a big ambition: space-enabled quantum entanglement networks that span borders and serve science and public good. He walked the audience from first principles to flight hardware—showing how Boeing is translating a classic four-photon entanglement swapping protocol into a satellite mission, and what it takes to go from lab optics to space-qualified systems.
From the ISS to Q4S: a stepwise path
Lowell recapped a foundational milestone: a NASA–University of Illinois–Boeing collaboration that flew an entanglement source to the International Space Station, demonstrating a Bell inequality violation (~2.6) and completing all mission objectives by July 2025 after its November 2024 launch. That on-orbit success set the stage for Q4S, Boeing’s next mission scheduled to launch next year to demonstrate entanglement swapping in space—creating two entangled pairs, performing a Bell-state measurement on one photon from each pair, and thereby entangling the two remaining photons for use elsewhere in a network.
Turning a textbook protocol into flight hardware
Entanglement swapping has been shown on Earth many times; doing it on-orbit is another story. Lowell detailed the engineering trade studies needed to make the protocol survive a satellite’s tight volume, mass, and power envelopes:
Power vs. detection: Because success scales with pair-creation rate and the fourth power of detection efficiency (four photons), they changed wavelength to gain power efficiency even at a slight cost in detection—netting a better space-viable swap rate.
From benchtop to payload: A full benchtop validator proved the approach and set requirements for a compact payload: <12 liters, ~19 kg, ~45 W draw, and a target of 100+ swaps/hour at high fidelity.
Ground twin & environmental trials: Boeing built a ground twin (non-flight) version and ran it through vacuum/thermal cycles mimicking orbit, where temperatures can swing 10–20°C every ~90 minutes. The team characterized pointing stability, timing alignment of photon pairs, and tomography to ensure fidelity stays inside the control envelope during thermal flexing.
Lowell noted fresh progress “hot off the presses”: the system has generated the required four-fold entanglement on the ground twin, clearing a key gate as the team moves into final flight assembly ahead of launch.
Beyond a single link: toward real networks
Q4S is a waypoint, not the finish line. Boeing is already comparing mission configurations for link-level and network-level demonstrations:
Uplink/Downlink (symmetric), Double Uplink, Double Downlink
Satellite crosslinks with split sources
End-to-end topologies approaching a full network
Each option, Lowell said, is being weighed across mission capability, technical risk, schedule, and cost to “bite off the biggest chunk of capability” as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The objective: a global entanglement network
The long-term target is explicit: a global entanglement network—one that crosses national borders and underpins science and other public goods. Achieving it demands more than physics; it requires mission design, space systems engineering, and coalition building. Boeing, Lowell emphasized, aims to bring all three together.