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Space Week: From Human Spaceflight to Studying Sun, ISRO’s Upcoming Missions Aim to Transform Indian Space Exploration – The Weather Channel

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Chandrayaan 2 launch.

Saturday, October 10 marks the conclusion of this years International Space Weekan annual celebration of science and technology as well as their contribution towards the betterment of the human condition. Over the past few decades, exponential growth in science and technology has allowed humanity to take gigantic leaps in understanding our planet and exploring far-off cosmic worlds that lie beyond our physical reach. In return, space science has helped humanity advance in all fields of science and ameliorate human conditions.

India too, over recent years, has become a notable contributor to the field of space science and exploration. In addition to the incredible research from Indian astronomers, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been taking the nation to greater heights and unexplored territoriesquite literally. With a hunger to explore more and understand better, the Indian space agency has no intentions of slowing down any time soon. And while the COVID-19 pandemic may have delayed some plans to an extent, ISRO has some major projects lined-up just for the next two years.

Here are ISROs five upcoming space missions that it aims to launch by the year 2022:

The first of ISROs upcoming missions will be the Radar Imaging Satellite 1A, or RISAT-1A. A land-based mission, this remote sensing satellites primary application will be in terrain mapping and analysis of land, ocean, and water surface for soil moisture.

RISAT-1A will be the sixth in the series of RISAT satellitesIndian radar imaging reconnaissance satellites built by ISRO that provide all-weather surveillance using synthetic aperture radars (SAR).

These radars can be used for Earth observation irrespective of the light and weather conditions of the area being imaged. RISAT-1A will provide continuity of service for RISAT-1, which was launched on April 26, 2012.

The satellite will carry payloads (instruments) for three categories, each consisting of different parametersLand (Albedo and reflectance, soil moisture, vegetation, and multi-purpose imagery), Ocean (Ocean topography/currents), and Snow & Ice (Ice sheet topography, Snow cover, edge and depth; Sea ice cover, edge, and thickness).

While its launch date is yet to be confirmed, reports indicate that it may take-off by late 2020 or early 2021, using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Last year, the Chandrayaan-2 mission not only took India to the Moon, but it also made ISRO a household name across the country. And while the failure to perform a soft landing on the lunar surface prevented the mission from being a 100% success, those incomplete objectives will soon be achieved through ISROs next lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3.

Chandrayaan-2 was a reasonably successful mission, said Dr Abhay Deshpande, a Senior Scientist working for the Government of India and the Honorary Secretary of Khagol Mandal (a non-profit collective of astronomy enthusiasts). The only setback we have faced is that through Chandrayaan-3, we now have to repeat some of the work that was supposed to be done by Chandrayaan-2. This has effectively delayed ISROs timeline and postponed some of its future missions. But other than this, there is nothing that needs to be done differently for Chandrayaan-3. I believe we will take all the necessary precautions, and achieve success in this mission, he added.

C3 is expected to retain the heritage of its predecessor while sporting a configuration that allows robust design and capacity enhancement for mission flexibility. Further, considering the C2 Orbiter continues to function optimally, the C3 mission will only consist of a lander and a rover. This also makes the mission more economical, with ISRO chairman K. Sivan estimating it to be worth 615 crore rupees. In comparison, C2 cost India 970 crore rupees.

The type of payloads C3 will carry remains unknown as of now, but if it retains all the main objectives of C2, it is likely to consist of payloads identical to those within Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover that were destroyed during the hard landing.

The mission is likely to be launched somewhere in early 2021, as per an announcement made by Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for the Department of Space, in early September 2020.

Having made strides in the field of unmanned space exploration, ISRO is now on the verge of launching the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme through its Gaganyaan mission. The Gaganyaan, which means Sky Craft in Sanskrit, is a crewed orbital spacecraft jointly manufactured by ISRO, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

Representative image

In the maiden crewed mission, which has been scheduled for December 2021, the 3.7-tonne capsule will orbit the Earth at a 400 km altitude for up to seven days, with a crew of one to three persons on board. Prior to his crewed mission, however, ISRO has also planned two uncrewed orbital test flights of the Gaganyaan capsulethe first in December 2020 and the second, July 2021.

While the crewed launch is still more than a year away, the biggest challenge of the entire mission may arrive much before the launchduring the human training phase, according to Dr. Deshpande.

Shedding light on this potential block, he told The Weather Channel: At present, the Indian astronauts are preparing for the mission in Russia, training in a simulated zero gravity environment to get accustomed to the harsh conditions of space. But at some point of time, we will have to train them on the Indian soil, for which we will have to create our own simulation and training centres. This could be one of the toughest parts of the mission, considering our lack of experience and data in this field.

While these challenges do lie in the way, they are manageable, and the overall Gaganyaan mission is expected to proceed smoothly. In fact, its successful completion will mark Indias entry to the human spaceflight programs, while simultaneously boosting the countrys space ambitions and opening doors of imagination for many Indians. For more information on the mission, click here.

So far, the year 2020 has been the year of Solar Physicsin January, US-based National Science Foundation's Inouye Solar Telescope released the most detailed images of the Sun ever; a month later, NASA and ESA launched their Solar Orbiter; and just last month, the Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun, managing to get within 13.5 million kilometres of the solar surface.

India, too, hopes to add to these achievements and contribute its own share to the field by January 2022 through Aditya-L1, the first Indian Solar Coronagraph spacecraft mission to study the solar coronathe outermost part of the Suns atmosphere. While ISRO initially envisaged it as a small low-Earth orbiting satellite with a coronagraph, the scope of the mission has since expanded to make it a comprehensive solar and space environment observatory.

Five Lagrangian points. Position of Telescope at L2. Aditya will be at L1.

Aditya will be placed near the Lagrangian Point L1, one of the five points between the Earth and the Sun where the gravity seems to balance. This very fact allows any spacecraft placed on such Lagrangian points to go around the Sun-Earth system without requiring much fuel.

Aditya will have seven payloads: Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX), Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA), Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS), and Magnetometer.

Together, these payloads will help Aditya-L1 observe the Sun's photosphere, chromosphere, and corona; the magnetic fields of the solar wind and solar magnetic storms; and the overall space environment around Earth, among other phenomena. They will also help us gain a comprehensive understanding of the dynamical processes of the Sun, while addressing some of the outstanding problems in solar physics and heliophysics. For more information on the mission, click here.

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch the first ever dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on an Earth observation satellite. With an estimated total cost of US$1.5 billion, it is likely to be the world's most expensive Earth-imaging satellite.

Artist's Concept of NISAR

NISARs main objective will be to observe and measure some of the Earth's most complex natural processes, including the evolution of Earths crust, ecosystem disturbances, ice-sheet collapse, changing climate, and natural calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc. To do this, it will use advanced radar imaging to map the elevation of Earth's land and ice masses at resolutions of 5 to 10 metres.

All data collected by this satellite will be made available for all 1-2 days after observation, and even within hours in case of emergencies and disasters.

ISROs role in the mission will be to provide the satellite bus, an S band synthetic aperture radar, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services, whereas NASA will supply the L band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem.

It will be launched from India aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle in September 2022, with a planned mission life of three years.

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Space Week: From Human Spaceflight to Studying Sun, ISRO's Upcoming Missions Aim to Transform Indian Space Exploration - The Weather Channel

UAE will launch its first moon rover in 2024 – Space.com

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The United Arab Emirates has joined the roll-call of nations looking to visit the moon, with a lunar rover named Rashid scheduled to launch in 2024.

The announcement comes while the nation's first mission beyond Earth orbit, a Mars spacecraft called Hope, is still trekking out to the Red Planet. That mission is a science-minded endeavor meant to study how Mars' climate and atmosphere work from orbit. The new lunar mission is of a different flavor, focused more on developing technologies and evaluating concerns before crewed and longer-duration exploration missions leave Earth and land on other worlds.

"There are many scientific objectives behind this mission that will help us to better understand the moon," Adnan AlRais of the UAE's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) told Space.com, "but also in the long run to support our ultimate goal, sending humans to Mars and building settlements on Mars."

Related: The United Arab Emirates' Hope Mars mission in photos

AlRais heads up the agency's Mars 2117 program, which was established in 2017 to target landing humans on Mars within a century. As part of the program, the UAE is developing a "Mars Science City" in the desert and taking part in practice Red Planet missions at analog facilities, among other activities.

Meanwhile, the nation's astronaut program is selecting two new spaceflyers to double its ranks. The UAE currently has two astronauts, one of whom spent a week on the International Space Station in 2019, and recently sent them to NASA's Johnson Space Center for additional training.

And that's all going on while the UAE prepares for the Hope spacecraft's orbital arrival at Mars in February.

For a space program less than two decades old, the newly announced lunar mission marks a foray beyond the existing focus areas of Earth-observation satellites, human spaceflight and Mars exploration.

The decision to target a lunar rover stems from the international recognition of the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, a nearby world to test technologies before committing to the monthslong voyage to the Red Planet.

"It makes sense to go to the moon," Hamad Al Marzooqi, project manager for the new lunar mission, told Space.com. "The moon is nearer to Earth than Mars and it will allow us to do high-frequency missions," although he declined to elaborate on what sort of future missions the agency is considering.

The team's current focus, he said, is on this initial lunar rover, dubbed Rashid after the late Sheik Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the current sheik's father and one of the founders of the UAE, according to the Associated Press. The UAE has not yet selected the rocket that will launch the rover in 2024.

The team also still needs to select a landing site from among five finalists, Al Marzooqi said. Those candidate sites, all located in the equatorial region of the near side of the moon, are locations that have never been visited by landed spacecraft, he added.

"We plan to go and explore new areas that have not been explored during previous missions and that will allow us to do interesting science," Al Marzooqi said.

The four-wheeled rover's task list is a bit of a smorgasbord, determined more by the landing site and the instruments the team believes it can manage than by an overarching scientific narrative. Rashid will carry a high-resolution camera, a thermal imager and a microscopic imager to tell scientists about the dusty lunar regolith (moon dirt) and the probe's surroundings.

It will also carry a Langmuir probe, an instrument that will study a particularly strange phenomenon on the moon. The solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles flowing off the sun, continually bombards the dayside lunar surface, since the moon has no atmosphere to stop these particles. The result is a slight positive charge to the dayside surface and in turn, a negatively charged photoelectron sheath about 3 feet (1 meter) tall above it.

The phenomenon may contribute to the stickiness of lunar dust that so frustrated Apollo-era exploration, a potential concern already on the minds of those looking to return to the moon. Al Marzooqi said no Langmuir probe has ever reached the lunar surface and he hopes Rashid's will address this ongoing mystery.

The rover will also test experimental spacesuit materials to evaluate how they withstand the harsh lunar environment. And although Rashid's primary mission will last just one lunar day (about 14 Earth days), the rover will carry experimental software that will monitor instruments' temperatures and regulate their power, with the goal of waking them up again once the frigid lunar night ends, Al Marzooqi said.

Related: Hazzaa AlMansoori: The 1st Emirati astronaut's space mission in photos

To date, three nations have successfully soft-landed on the moon: the then-Soviet Union, the U.S. and China. Two countries attempted to join that list last year but failed: Both Israel's Beresheet lander and the Vikram lander of India's Chandrayaan-2 mission experienced glitches during the landing process and didn't slow down enough to survive the impact.

Al Marzooqi said those missions were on the Rashid team's mind looking ahead to a 2024 landing attempt.

"I was disappointed to see those failed missions," he said. "When you see failed missions before your mission, you need to understand the risk better in order to make sure that we don't follow the same path."

But that risk is also the price of admission, the UAE knows.

"There is no space mission with 100% success rate," Al Marzooqi said.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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UAE will launch its first moon rover in 2024 - Space.com

NASAs Planet Patrol wants you to join the search for exoplanets – EarthSky

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Have you ever wanted to help scientists find exoplanets, worlds orbiting distant stars? Well, nows your chance! NASA has just launched a new citizen science website called Planet Patrol,a collaboration between NASA, the SETI Institute, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Zooniverse. Volunteers will assist astronomers by looking through images taken by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), NASAs newest planet-hunter, which was launched in 2018.

As described on the Planet Patrol website:

NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission will take pictures of more than a million stars to search for planets orbiting them, called transiting exoplanets. We expect this mission will see thousands of these transiting exoplanets when they pass in front of nearby stars and periodically block some of the starlight.

But sometimes when a star dims like that, its not because of a planet. Variable stars, eclipsing binary stars, blended stars, glitches in the data, etc., can cause a similar effect. We need your help to spot these imposters!

At Planet Patrol, youll help us check the data from the TESS mission, one image at a time, to make sure that objects we suspect are planets REALLY are planets.

Artists illustration of TESS. Planet Patrol uses data from the space telescope to search for exoplanets orbiting far-away stars. Image via NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center.

The objective is twofold: search for planetary candidates in the data, as well as planetary imposters, other objects or phenomena that could be mimicking a planet. Project leader Veselin Kostov of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center said in a statement:

Automated methods of processing TESS data sometimes fail to catch imposters that look like exoplanets. The human eye is extremely good at spotting such imposters, and we need citizen scientists to help us distinguish between the look-alikes and genuine planets.

This also explains why human volunteers (3,968 at the time of this writing!) are needed in the first place. TESS collects a lot of data, hundreds of thousands of images in a year. Since according to scientists most stars have planets,each image could contain thousands of unseen planets. When you multiply that by the thousands of images, it becomes a daunting task to try to find the stars where planets are transiting in front of them, from our viewpoint (keeping in mind that many planets will have orbits that dont transit). Computers can detect many or even most of such transits, but they are not perfect. This is especially true for smaller planets, like Earth, in larger orbits far out from their stars.

Scientists have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets so far, of many different kinds, as represented in this artists concept. With the publics help, they should find many more as well. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech).

The Planet Patrol volunteers will help find the planets that the computer algorithms miss, but they will also assist with something just as valuable: weeding out false positives. Sometimes, what appears to be a planet transiting its star isnt actually a planet at all. Other possibilities include binary star systems, where two stars orbit each other around their common center of mass, and so alternately eclipse each other periodically. Other times, what seems to be a transit is actually just changes in brightness of a star itself. Still another kind of false alarm is simply errors or quirks in the observing instruments themselves.

All of those possibilities need to be eliminated before a candidate planet can actually be declared a confirmed discovery.

It can be tricky, of course, separating the real planets from the false ones, but on the new website, volunteers can ask questions about each image they study. This helps the TESS team narrow down the list of potential planets to the ones that are the most promising. Theres also the Planet Patrol Talk community where participants can discuss their findings with each other as well. As Marc Kuchner, Citizen Science Officer for NASAs Science Mission Directorate, described the process:

Were all swimming through the same sea of data, just using different strokes. Planet Hunters TESS asks volunteers to look at light curves, which are graphs of stars brightness over time. Planet Patrol asks them to look at the TESS image directly, although we plan to also include light curves for those images in the future.

Veselin Kostov of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, Project Leader at Planet Patrol. Image viaVeselin B. Kostov.

Over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered so far in our galaxy, ranging from scorching hot Jupiters to smaller and cooler rocky worlds like Earth. Astronomers now estimate that almost every star has at least one planet and that the total number of planets may outnumber the stars in our galaxy. Thats a staggering thought.

Planet Patrol is not only a new way to help find distant worlds that might otherwise be missed; it is also a great way for the public to become involved and engaged. There are still many planetary candidates from TESS to be examined, and TESS is expected to find thousands more, so this is a great time to learn how to go planet-hunting.

Bottom line: NASA has launched a new website called Planet Patrol where volunteers can help search for exoplanets.

Via NASA

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NASAs Planet Patrol wants you to join the search for exoplanets - EarthSky

Why flexibility is critical for launch industry to tide over current unpredictabilities – Geospatial World

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While launch schedules are beginning to return to normal, the satellite industry will likely be feeling long-term effects from the pandemic. Under strict lockdown regulations, many satellite developers have been unable to continue development at pre-COVID-19 speed, and taken together with issues up and down the supply chain, the industry will certainly see a broad impact in speed of development. In this background, flexibility is critical to combating the unpredictability of timelines and implications they have on launch schedules, believes Grant Bonin, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Spaceflight Inc.

Before the pandemic, a Bryce report found that 100% of all commercial smallsat launches experienced some form of launch delay. Delays leave satellite developers unable to get revenue-generating assets on orbit on time and unable to demonstrate a satellites capabilities, limiting opportunities for future funding. While launch delays will never disappear completely, flexibility can mitigate negative impacts, he explains.

Initially, a lot of VC-backed companies press pause and take austerity measures, but as the current pandemic has drawn out, it is being observed that commercial companies are recognizing that the best way to create value is by launching and operating their satellites. So were seeing the market rebound in a fairly powerful way. The industry has proven more resilient than even we thought there are many great companies out there, and great companies will always get funded and need launch, he underlines. Of course, there could be a ripple effect in this regard that wont fully be understood for another six to 12 months.

In an exhaustive interview, Bonin talks about the impact of the pandemic on the industry, and how Spacelight is providing the much-needed flexibility in launches that the industry so desperately needs to tackle some of the unpredictable challenges.

ALSO READ: Satellogic teams up with European Space Imaging and others to launch global consortium of imagery

In the short term weve seen a lot of disruption to the majority of launch schedules this year. However, were now seeing launches pick back up again. For example, the VV16 Vega mission was supposed to launch in the spring of 2020, following a failure on a previous launch, but this mission was delayed following a variety of lockdowns across the globe. The mission successfully launched in September, sending more than 50 satellites to orbit. Spaceflight has three more launches scheduled this year, with several others slated for quarter one of next year.

With longer-term effects, I anticipate well see some disruption in satellite readiness for launch dates scheduled before the pandemic. Under strict lockdown regulations, many satellite developers have been unable to continue development at pre-COVID-19 speed, and taken together with issues up and down the supply chain, we certainly see a broad impact in speed of development. We fully expect to see a ripple effect in this regard that wont fully be understood for another six to 12 months: but thats where Spaceflights launch flexibility really becomes of substantial value.

When delays occur, we can re-manifest our customers on another launch via our global launch vehicle network. Additionally, we recently announced several other programs, including multi-launch subscription services for launch, fully-transparent pricing, a Book My Launch platform, new vehicle and launch contracts, and our next-generation Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle, to take customers from the airport to the hotel in comfort. All of these programs are designed to help our customers get to exactly the orbit they want, exactly when they want. Spaceflight offers launch schedule assurance and greatest flexibility to smallsat customers needing frequent, reliable, and cost-effective ways to get spacecraft on orbit.

The biggest impact Spaceflight experienced was the disruption to launch schedules. For many of our clients, we execute the integration of satellites, so we are on site for launches and supporting weeks of integration work leading up to the launch. Even with the lockdowns, we serviced the customers above and beyond. Now were seeing things return to normal with regards to launch schedules.

From the booking perspective, things have not slowed. We are still working with many clients, existing and new, to schedule upcoming launches. Similar to many organizations, our team is largely working remotely (though as with many in the aerospace sector, we have been deemed essential and engineering activities continue at our Auburn facility). Before the pandemic struck, we were already set up to work across time zones to service customers, so we adapted to it with ease and have continued to keep everything on track with our customers. Finally, with the recent introduction of our Mission Control platform, an online portal that allows customers to easily access mission statuses, learn about key deliverables and view updates, has enabled our customers to see the progression of their mission online and provides an easy way for them to coordinate with their mission manager.

Weve been making our moves into the digital realm quickly, to make sure that in this new world we all find ourselves in, were still reliable and easy to book launches through.

The major downside for us, as with many companies, has actually been the loss of in-person water-cooler conversations. The team at Spaceflight thrives on internal and customer interactions; we miss hanging out!

Spaceflight intends to change the way customers get delivered into orbit. Conventional approaches to booking (and paying for) launch are arcane and transactional. Were drawing on the best insights of the best service providers across many different industries to revolutionize the launch experience.

First, our new overall booking process was born out of a desire to create a customer experience that is seamless and convenient. Our online booking portal allows customers to easily find launch options and book the ones that suit their needs, much as they would book (or change) any other flight. Next is the ability to move spacecraft from one launch to another launch in the case of a delay. This entails moving from one vehicle and integration facility to another and the launch sites can be a country apart. The team at Spaceflight has deep expertise across a variety of launch vehicles, ensuring a smooth integration process for customers. Finally, our Sherpa OTV program completes the picture, letting us provide the much-advertised but not yet realized last mile delivery service, enabling satellites to reach almost any exact orbit from any launch to common orbits.

Spaceflight is changing the way people think about launch deals by offering exactly that: subscription services for launch. Price is always critical, but in this industry, cash is king. Spaceflight has pioneered new launch deal structures that give maximum flexibility as well as correspondingly great cashflow terms to customers. The aerospace industry has always traded on being the pointy end of the sword technically, but virtually all other industries have surpassed it in terms of customer service. We aggressively learn from other sectors about how to best serve customers, and putting customers first.

ALSO READ: Satellite data nails Chinese fishing fleet near ecologically sensitive Galpagos Islands

Now more than ever, cash is king in the space industry. As the acceptance of subscription models rises for consumer and business goods in other industries, from everything from software and entertainment to pet food, we believe its a model that could also benefit the space industry. In an industry as unpredictable and risky as the space industry, subscription models provide certainty. Under our new ownership, we are uniquely poised to offer it, to the benefit of both our customers and our launch providers.

For launch vehicle providers implementing a subscription model allows launchers to gain predictable insight into their own cash flow. It helps them capitalize on the compounding value of customer relationships and commit to providing exceptional service. Predictability, like cash, is highly valued in our business.

For satellite developers, subscriptions can help them maintain some schedule consistency and predictability. Developers can have an extra level of flexibility by securing capacity on a wide range of launch vehicles rather than just one, enabling the payloads to easily spread across multiple vehicles to minimize risk.

While conventionally, the space industry is inherently inflexible and quite challenging, subscription models bring consistency and reliability for both launchers and satellite developers.

Spaceflight has recently signed a number of multi-launch agreements, which enables us to offer our smallsat customers a diverse portfolio of launch options and extensive launch capacity. In June, we signed a multi-launch agreement with SpaceX. This agreement secures rideshare capacity to launch payloads on several SpaceX missions through the end of 2021. Additionally, we signed a launch services agreement with Firefly Aerospace in April 2020 to maximize launch capacity on the commercial Alpha mission.

We are always evaluating new vehicle entrants and securing capacity with the goal to open space access for more smallsats.

Our Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) product will enable satellites to be deployed to anywhere on orbit, even if the initial launch drops them off in a non-ideal orbit. Satellites that require a specific orbit dont often have many launch options available, so if they are able to catch a ride to a common orbital destination and finish in an orbit that is harder to reach, the number of launches available to them will increase dramatically.

Other companies have been advertising this for years, but we generally find either their technology is intrinsically flawed, their business model is unsustainable, or they cant access the broad range of launch vehicle providers that Spaceflight can. Spaceflights Sherpa program pre-dates almost all in-space transportation solutions, and weve revamped it with the current state of the art in propulsion, radiation-tolerant avionics, and high-accuracy control and telemetry systems to deliver customers quickly (hours to days) and accurately to their final destination in space, in a way no one else can achieve.

Typically, launches that meet satellite developers orbit requests are pricey and may warrant purchasing a whole rocket, but recent innovations in hardware development have proven a promising future to make last mile delivery possible. Specifically, orbital transfer vehicles, such as Spaceflights Sherpa-FX vehicle, are paving the way to create flexible manifest changes, enabling deployment to multiple altitudes and orbital planes, all while offering rapid launch solutions.

The debut of Spaceflights Sherpa-NG (next generation) program will occur later this year, with its first OTV, Sherpa-FX, launching 16 satellites. This hardware is one of the many innovative solutions coming to the market that will allow smallsat payloads to ride on large vehicles, which offer low-cost options, while getting to their preferred orbit coordinates.

The Sherpa-NG program will host a family of space vehicles, continuing the tradition of Spaceflights first orbital free flyer on the SSO-A mission. The new orbital transfer vehicle, Sherpa-FX, will be capable of executing multiple satellite deployments to multiple orbits, as well as providing independent and detailed deployment telemetry for customers and flexible interfaces. Spaceflight delivers value that outweighs the premium costs for launch.

Be flexible. There are countless ways businesses are affected by the pandemic and its important to be adaptable and flexible and find innovative solutions. And that flexibility is something we are constantly focused on offering to our customers. That flexibility may help them manage the impacts of pandemic and find a new launch that better suits their needs. We are hopeful that businesses will survive these unique circumstances and that the industry will bounce back stronger.

At the same time, be aggressive: unfortunate as our current global circumstances are, there are huge opportunities that arise from hardship that can allow companies to create great value and improve the world.

One striking thing about all our customers is that they want to do something importantwhether its defending their country or improving it, everyone who comes to us with launch needs tends to be passionate and devoted to their cause. Space is our shared high-ground, and excitement for what we can do up there hasnt diminished. We would lastly encourage companies to be bold, take big swings, and remember that history isnt a spectator sport. Our achievements up there long-outlive our companies and lives down here.

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Why flexibility is critical for launch industry to tide over current unpredictabilities - Geospatial World

Travis Scott Appears to Hint at New Music: ‘Going to Go Cook Up and Build These Walls for Utopia’ – Complex

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Travis Scottappeared to tease his forthcoming album Utopia with an incredibly small change to his Instagram that only eagle-eyed fans may have noticed when hechanged his bio from Astroworld, the title of his 2018 album, to Utopia.

Scott also tweeted that he's "GOING TO GO COOK UP AND BUILD THESE WALLS FOR UTOPIA. SEE YOU GUYS SOON." On top of that, Scott told DJ's to "keep checking ur mailbox" as he has "something on the way in the mail for ya."

GOING TO GO COOK UP AND BUILD THESE WALLS FOR UTOPIA. SEE YOU GUYS SOON.

DJs Just keep Checking ur mailboxGot something on the way in the mail for ya

Back in August, Scott celebrated the two-year anniversary, or "Astroversary,"of Astroworld with a handwritten note that concluded, "Let's keep the ride going, see you in Utopia."

When asked to confirm that Utopia was the title of his next album, Scott's friend and collaborator Chase B responded, "Oh nah, it's not. I think thats just him being Trav. Just feeling good, in the moment."In an interview with GQ published in October, La Flame was asked "Where does one go after Astroworld,"to which he responded, "You go to Utopia. Thats where you go."

Scott's latest single "Franchise" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, making him thefastest artist to accumulate three No. 1 debuts in the chart's history.

Stay tuned.

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Travis Scott Appears to Hint at New Music: 'Going to Go Cook Up and Build These Walls for Utopia' - Complex

Meet new faculty: Katie Adkison and what the Bard tells us about the power of voice – Bates News

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Each week this fall, well introduce new Bates professors who have tenure-track positions on the faculty.

This years nine tenure appointments are in the disciplines of art and visual culture, classical and medieval studies, economics, English, environmental studies, dance, politics (two appointments), and psychology.

This week we introduce the seventh of our nine new faculty members, Katie Adkison.

Name: Katie Adkison

Title: Assistant Professor of English

Degrees from: University of California, Santa Barbara, Ph.D. in English; Colorado State University, M.A. in English literature, B.A. in English education

Her work: Adkison studies the role of an individuals spoken voice in early modern English literature what the actual feeling of speaking means and conveys, especially in terms of power structures.

In Adkisons scholarship, voice becomes a kind of embodied sensation. Not literally a sixth sense, but something more akin to sensing knowledge than to just a tool of communication.

Her dissertation: The Sense of Speech: Voice and Sovereignty in Early Modern Tragedy, describes the relationship between early modern theories of sovereignty and the phenomenology of the voice in Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy.

For example: In the opening scene of King Lear, the titular monarch decides to divide his kingdom based on how much his three daughters say they love him. His first two daughters make elaborate but insincere declarations of love.

Lear then turns to his third daughter, Cordelia, and asks, What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters? Cordelia, who does truly love the king, responds, Nothing, my Lord. She continues:

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heaveMy heart into my mouth: I love your majestyAccording to my bond; nor more nor less. (1.1.91-93)

In referring to her own voice, Cordelia is trying to tell her father something about politics and about love that his love test is failing to understand, says Adkison. Shes saying that love and politics are not mathematical equations. You cant give more love through your voice the way that you can give more money or more of something tangible.

The opening scene is a kernel in the larger lesson of the play. Cordelia, in effect, is vocalizing the fact that her vocalization cant do what her father wants it to do it cant be reduced to words. Shes saying, Theres more to love here, just as theres more to language in the very voice Im speaking through.

The scene sets the stage for the tragedy. Lear wants words to equal inheritance, a kingdom, power. Cordelia wants no part of it. And so it ends, with death, tears, and so much pain, says Adkison.

Iambic sortameter: In King Lears opening scene, Shakespeare uses a jarring version of iambic pentameter for some of Cordelias lines. The rhythm is off, says Adkison, noting that the Bard sometimes uses an extra syllable, 11 instead of the usual 10 or even a whole extra two-syllable iamb in some lines.

Shakespeare did that often, she explains, usually to draw attention to something. If the rhythm is off, you are supposed to feel it as an audience member.

We cant know the intentions of the author now or 500 years later. But the meaning is there, regardless. Thats magic to me.

Adkison recalls the moment that something felt off in one of the lines. And so I started counting syllables, the way youre supposed to when something feels off. The extra syllable had to be purposeful. Its too perfect not to be.

In Cordelias 11-syllable lines, there is something that literally cant be divided up. The rhythm of the lines is as out of step with her fathers demands as her inability to speak her love is. Shes really talking about vocal rhythm and the experience of voice to explain whats going on.

A beautiful thing: The beautiful thing about how literature thinks about language is that we cant know the intentions of the author now or 500 years later, Adkison says. But the meaning is there, regardless. Theres always something new to be parsed and to be found. Thats magic to me.

Classroom magic: Sometimes, magical classroom moments happen when a teacher allows a discussion to go off the straight rails.

Last winter, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Adkison was teaching Thomas Mores Utopia. A student asked, Is anyone watching The Good Place? referring to the NBC fantasy comedy about a utopian, but problematic, afterlife.

Rather than guide the discussion back to the 16th century, Adkison took a moment to connect the dots. She noted the etymology of the word utopia and how it can mean the good place or no place or the good place that cannot exist or something along those lines.

Eager for wordplay, Adkisons students jumped at the chance to connect Mores Utopia to The Good Place, which led to a conversation about the way that the show uses and problematizes the notion of a utopia in such interesting ways.

Then she guided the students back to how More imagined what a good life looked like in his Utopia. The text is infamously sticky about how one constructs a good life, what it means to live the good life, and all the problems that are wrapped up in that text.

And a course is born: All of that left Adkison wanting so badly to teach a class on utopia. And if you look at utopia, you have to teach the second half of the class on dystopias because it seems to be true that a good place for some frequently comes to mean a bad place for others.

College students are special because they will think with you taking on the agency of research and thinking of their learning as their own.

And, voil! This spring, Adkison will teach such a course on utopian and dystopian fiction, from Mores Utopia and Margaret Cavendishs The Blazing World to George Orwells 1984 and the first of N.K. Jemisins Broken Earth trilogy. Im hoping well end with the first season of The Good Place and try and end on a funny note even if its not necessarily optimistic in all of the ways one wants it to be.

Why Bates? I was so excited when I visited Bates to see how much collaboration happens between departments and between students and faculty. Collaborative research structures the idea of the undergraduate thesis that all students write here.

Why college? College students are special because they will think with you taking on the agency of research and thinking of their learning as their own.

Finding her path: At my core, I have always known I wanted to be a teacher, Adkison says.

I thought I would be a high school English teacher for the rest of my life. But my path to graduate work was one I found late in the stages of my own bachelors degree, when I was taking education courses alongside literature courses. I realized I had more questions about the literature. I couldnt be done.

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Meet new faculty: Katie Adkison and what the Bard tells us about the power of voice - Bates News

‘Utopia’ is a Pandemic Story That Looks a Lot Like Reality – The Heights

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Utopia, a new series from Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, hit Amazon Prime on Friday. The show is the furthest thing from utopic, but its title is well-suited for the satirical, vice-filled thriller. Expect the unexpected with Utopiathe plot twists and distorts seemingly harmless comic-obsessed fanboys into serious threats to humanity.

The Amazon Original is adapted from the British show of the same name that aired from 2013 to 2014. It follows a group of friends bonded together by a graphic novel series. The gang connects over the internet, where they share their conspiracy theories that the fictional novels foreshadow reality. When an original copy of the sequel, named Utopia, turns up, the group of young adult friends follow it to a Chicago comic convention. Even though they try to fight it, the friends are eventually forced to come to grips with the fact that their theories might be true. With that knowledge comes the responsibility to save the world.

The eight-episode television series is set amid a rising pandemic that affects children (what a coincidence, right?). This version features familiar namesRainn Wilson plays epidemiologist Dr. Michael Stearns, while John Cusack plays his villainous counterpart, Dr. Kevin Christie. Ashleigh LaThrop of The Handmaids Tale also appears.

Utopia is grim, especially with regard to its characters. The most central character of Utopia is Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane), a not-quite-hero with complex motivations. Her questionable choices always boil down to her own survival. Trying to understand why she makes the decisions she does is a puzzle in and of itself. Her selfish worldview reflects the shows cynical outlook on humanity.

Many thrillers fixate on a single character who has undergone trauma of some kindthey had a lonely childhood, or skeletons in their closet, or they simply neglect their mental health. Utopia amplifies this trope by fleshing out many of its characters, further strengthening the plot. To varying degrees, each character falls into the trope of the poorly adjusted adult or the mysterious one with a dark past. Still, Utopia knows when to step back and leave some things unknownnobody is put under a microscope. Even with Jessica Hyde, interpretations are about the morality of her actions, not her. Utopia masters the balance of characterization: Although viewers are kept at a distance, they know just enough to empathize with the cast and feel the shows suspense.

Though the show is loosely connected to the coronavirus pandemic, Utopia does not claim to offer up any wisdom for the real world. The show pays more attention to how the characters drive the plot, and most of the time, they dont need to say much for a scene to have significance. The suspenseful storyline of Utopia is an escape from reality, not a fix.

Featured image courtesy of Amazon

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"Utopia" shows the disheartening problems of pandemic TV – Salon

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There are TV series that speak to their times, those that are products of their times, and shows that become casualties of them. Amazon's violent, cluttered "Utopia" is an exemplar of all these concepts at once and almost entirely by accident.

This is a series that's been in the works since 2018 and initially had David Fincher attached before being passed to "Sharp Objects" and "Gone Girl" writer Gillian Flynn, adapted from a 2013 British thriller that only lasted a season. Take note of those dates, because they're relevant here. In 2018 the very thought that a pandemic would unravel life as we know it was enough removed from our reality to nestle it in the background of puzzle-driven action drama revolving around a graphic novel with a cult fanbase.

Five years prior to that, when the U.K. original came out, the world was only a few years removed from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, a novel influenza virus that ripped across the globe, causing nearly 12,500 deaths in the United States alone. But that was a flu; infection rates subsided, and we moved on.

What we could not let go, however, was our fascination with stories containing mysteries and meanings begging to be detangled, a mass infection triggered by the end of "Lost" . . . and we still haven't stumbled upon that cure.

Now our most pressing concerns are related to, yes, a global pandemic that the current president of the United States has failed to curb or attempted to battle with any strategy whatsoever.Conspiracy theorists have infiltrated our government on the federal and local levels, and the world is praying for a vaccine while fearing that anything rushed to market is bound to either be ineffective or laced with potentially dangerous side effects.

That's also "Utopia," more or less,save for a heroine,Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane), whose life parallels the action in a comic book with a cult following one that may be laden with clues warning that a deadly manmade pandemic is in the offing. Well, that and recurring appearances by a villain wearing the rabbit's head and a hitmen who indulge in a whole lot of torture and violence.

"Utopia" has polarized critics and many viewers, particularly those who have seen the British original and aren't enamored of Amazon Studios' upgrades. But it is particularly telling that many of the critiques mention the problem of evoking our current moment too closely and nowhere nearly as imaginatively as the moment demands.

The accidental relevance of this series wouldn't be its sole flaw in a timeline where COVID-19 never happened. "Utopia" suffers from stumbles that are all too typical among ambitious creators, primarily the urge to showcase Lane's formidable heroine and a knotty conspiracy with apocalyptic implications at the expense of story and character development.

Diving into the specifics of "Utopia" beyond the barest of descriptions would spoil the twists in its eight episodes, so I'll skip to the diagnosis:this is initially buoyed by fine performances from Ashleigh LaThrop, Dan Byrd, Jessica Rothe, and the always compelling Desmin Borges as comic book fan foursome Becky, Ian, Samantha and Wilson Wilson, respectively. Unfortunately they and Rainn Wilson's disillusioned virologyDr. Michael Stearns aresoon overpowered by Case's gruff takeover of their lives, andthe casual escalation of a body count.

Maybe these traits would be perceived as lesser sins in times past. This being 2020, a year of exhaustion, anxiety and despair, asking the average viewerto get excited about "Utopia" may be equal in appeal to, say, sitting down with someone who has narrowly escaped the California wildfires and offering to soothe them with a "Chicago Fire" marathon, or a screening of "Backdraft."

We are still figuring out how to navigate this existence, mentally and physically, and television plays a more central role in that process than ever before. It is our information source and our escape, and will increasingly be so as the weather grows colder and the political noise surrounding the election grows more piercing and dangerous.

However as I was watching the finale of "Utopia" a line of dialogue spoken by John Cusack's character Dr. Kevin Christie stuck with me: "People are driven by the need to know what happens next." Mired as we are in such a precarious era, it struck me that the downfall of series such as "Utopia" or even shows revolving around prosaic premises such as Netflix's upcoming"Social Distance" or NBC's "Connecting" is their inability to transport us to places beyond the hell we're in.

"Social Distance" is an eight-partanthology series tracing the chronology of this novel coronavirus from the onset of quarantine to the eruption of protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd. "Connecting" is a network comedy featuring an ensemble cast, and what these shows have in common with, for that matter, Freeform's "Love in the Time of Corona" and HBO's "Coastal Elites" is that they're all products of our lockdown culture.

Each is filmed using distanced cameras, creating scenes from security footage, computers and mobile devices, or approximations thereof, and basically transforming the audience into webcam spies. The thing is, these are series inviting us to watch conversations between actors conversing directly to us or to each other using web conferencing screens, as if the people watching them haven't been on those screens nearly every waking moment of their days.

"Utopia," meanwhile, is a fiction that imagines a dark, dystopic fantasy of our reality, which is already a darkdystopia, and attempts to resurrect the sort of cryptographic mystery that defined "Lost" in our memory. But if that were all that drama had going for it, the story never would have gotten its hooks into us.Instead its appeal is very simple and the missing ingredient in the "Utopia" formula, which is that we embraced it for the relationships.

This is where "Utopia" fails and, although those other shows are quite different, this is where they come up short as well. I understand, of course, that the very point of "Connecting," "Social Distance" and "Love in the Time of Corona" is to illustrate the difficulty of forging new connections and maintaining the strength of old ones at a time when we're supposed to limit the time we spend outside of our own houses and stay at least six feet apart from people we use to reflexively hug on sight.

And this brings me back to Dr. Christie's question: What would we get, as viewers and humans hungry for an uplift, if creatives stopped looking back or trying to commiserate with the audience and dared to leap ahead a few years and create a destination that isn't dark, disturbing and violent, or too much like looking like the walls of our own coop?

What if someone created a comedy or a drama based on aspiration and hope as opposed to yet another procedural or ensemble piece featuring characters yelling at one another through windows, actual or virtual?

What if, despite the fathoms-deep social divisions wrecking our conscious hours, some enterprising writer and studio can collaborate on a vision that isn't an adaptation of our flawed present or some property that's already been explored. That turns out not to be a place to escape, but a destinationat which we can dream of arriving?

Sure, it's an ideal. But it's exactly the type of show I'd happily tune in.

"Utopia" is currently streaming on Amazon. "Social Distance" premieres on Thursday, Oct.15 onNetflix. "Connecting" airsThursdays at 8 p.m.NBC, moving to 8:30pm on Oct. 29.

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Bringing the promise of quantum computing to nuclear physics – MSUToday

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Quantum mechanics, the physics of atoms and subatomic particles, can be strange, especially compared to the everyday physics of Isaac Newtons falling apples. But this unusual science is enabling researchers to develop new ideas and tools, including quantum computers, that can help demystify the quantum realm and solve complex everyday problems.

Thats the goal behind a new U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) grant, awarded to Michigan State University (MSU) researchers, led by physicists at Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Working with Los Alamos National Laboratory, the team is developing algorithms essentially programming instructions for quantum computers to help these machines address problems that are difficult for conventional computers. For example, problems like explaining the fundamental quantum science that keeps an atomic nucleus from falling apart.

The $750,000 award, provided by the Office of Nuclear Physics within DOE-SC, is the latest in a growing list of grants supporting MSU researchers developing new quantum theories and technology.

The aim is to improve the efficiency and scalability of quantum simulation algorithms, thereby providing new insights on their applicability for future studies of nuclei and nuclear matter, said principal investigator Morten Hjorth-Jensen, an FRIB researcher who is also a professor in MSUs Department of Physics and Astronomy and a professor of physics at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Morten Hjorth-Jensen (Credit: Hilde Lynnebakken)

Although this grant focuses on nuclear physics, the algorithms it yields could benefit other fields looking to use quantum computings promise to more rapidly solve complicated problems. This includes scientific disciplines such as chemistry and materials science, but also areas such as banking, logistics, and data analytics.

There is a lot of potential for transferring what we are developing into other fields, Hjorth-Jensen said. Hopefully, our results will lead to an increased interest in theoretical and experimentaldevelopments of quantum information technologies. All the algorithms developed as part of this work will be publicly available, he added.

What makes quantum computers attractive tools for these applications is a freedom afforded by quantum mechanics.

Classical computers are constrained to a binary system of zeros and ones with transistors that are either off or on. The restrictions on quantum computers are looser.

Instead of transistors, quantum computers use technology called qubits (pronounced q-bits) that can be both on and off at the same time. Not somewhere in between, but in both opposite states at once.

Combined with the proper algorithms, this freedom enables quantum computers to run certain calculations much faster than their classical counterparts. The type of calculations, for instance, capable of helping scientists explain precisely how swarms of elementary particles known as quarks and gluons hold atomic nuclei together.

"It is really hard to do those problems, said Huey-Wen Lin, a co-investigator on the grant. I dont see a way to solve them any time soon with classical computers.

Huey-Wen Lin

Lin is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering at MSU.

She added that quantum computers wont solve these problems immediately, either. But the timescales could be measured in years rather than careers.

Hjorth-Jensen believes this project will also help accelerate MSUs collaborations in quantum computing. Formally, this grant supports a collaboration of eight MSU researchers and staff scientist Patrick Coles at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

But Hjorth-Jensen hopes the project will spark more discussions and forge deeper connections with the growing community of quantum experts across campus and prepare the next generation of researchers. The grant will also open up new opportunities in quantum computing training for MSU students who are studying in the nations top-ranked nuclear physics graduate program.

The grant, titled From Quarks to Stars: A Quantum Computing Approach to the Nuclear Many-Body Problem, was awarded as part of Quantum Horizons: Quantum Information Systems Research and Innovation for Nuclear Science," a funding opportunity issued by DOE-SC.

Hjorth-Jensen and Lin are joined on this grant by their MSU colleagues Alexei Bazavov and Matthew Hirn from the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering; Scott Bogner, Heiko Hergert, Dean Lee and Andrea Shindler from FRIB, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Hirn is also an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics.

MSU is establishing FRIB as a new user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Under construction on campus and operated by MSU, FRIB will enable scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security, and industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of todays most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.

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4 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Start With Quantum Computing – Medium

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Quantum computing is a rapidly developing field, with everyone trying to build the perfect hardware, find new applications for current algorithms, or even develop new algorithms. Because of that, the near-future demand for quantum programmers and researchers will increase shortly.

Many governmental and industrial institutions have set aside substantial funds to develop quantum technologies. The Quantum Daily (TQD) estimated the current market for quantum computing to be around $235 million. This number is predicted to grow substantially to $6.25 billion by 2025.

This incredible amount of funds leads to an increase in the number of academia, government, and industry positions. Almost all technology companies are changing their business model to adapt to when quantum technology makes an impact.

TQD also adds that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that in 2020 so far, there are around 1.4 million more quantum software development jobs than applicants who can fill them.

In 2019, MIT published an article called Q&A: The talent shortage in quantum computing that addressed the different challenges the field faces right now. Afterward, it developed MIT xPRO, a group addressing the reality that students arent the only people interested in learning about the different aspects of quantum information.

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4 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Start With Quantum Computing - Medium

What is Quantum Computing, and How does it Help Us? – Analytics Insight

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The term quantum computing gained momentum in the late 20thcentury. These systems aim to utilize these capabilities to become highly-efficient. They use quantum bits or qubits instead of the simple manipulation of ones and zeros in existing binary-based computers. These qubits also have a third state called superposition that simultaneously represents a one or a zero. Instead of analyzing a one or a zero sequentially, superposition allows two qubits in superposition to represent four scenarios at the same time. So we are at the cusp of a computing revolution where future systems have capability beyond mathematical calculations and algorithms.

Quantum computers also follow the principle of entanglement, which Albert Einstein had referred to as spooky action at a distance. Entanglement refers to the observation that the state of particles from the same quantum system cannot be described independently of each other. Even when they are separated by great distances, they are still part of the same system.

Several nations, giant tech firms, universities, and startups are currently exploring quantum computing and its range of potential applications. IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other companies are investing heavilyin developing large-scale quantum computing hardware and software. Google and UCSB have a partnership to develop a 50 qubits computer, as it would represent 10,000,000,000,000,000 numbers that would take a modern computer petabyte-scale memory to store. A petabyte is the unit above a terabyte and represents 1,024 terabytes. It is also equivalent to 4,000 digital photos taken every day. Meanwhile, names like Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Systems, 1Qbit Information Technologies, Inc., Quantum Circuits, Inc., QC Ware, Zapata Computing, Inc. are emerging as bigger players in quantum computing.

IEEE Standards Association Quantum Computing Working Group is developing two technical standards for quantum computing. One is for quantum computing definitions and nomenclature, so we can all speak the same language. The other addresses performance metrics and performance benchmarking to measure quantum computers performance against classical computers and, ultimately, each other. If required, new standards will also be added with time.

The rapid growth in the quantum tech sector over the past five years has been exciting. This is because quantum computing presents immense potential. For instance, a quantum system can be useful for scientists for conducting virtual experiments and sifting through vast amounts of data. Quantum algorithms like quantum parallelism can perform a large number of computations simultaneously. In contrast, quantum interference will combine their results into something meaningful and can be measured according to quantum mechanics laws. Even Chinese scientists are looking to developquantum internet, which shall be a more secure communication system in which information is stored and transmitted withadvanced cryptography.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University used quantum algorithms to transform MRI scans for cancer, allowing the scans to be performed three times faster and to improve their quality by 30%. In practice, this can mean patients wont need to be sedated to stay still for the length of an MRI, and physicians could track the success of chemotherapy at the earliest stages of treatment.

Laboratoire de Photonique Numrique et Nanosciences of France has built a hybrid device that pairs a quantum accelerometer with a classical one and uses a high-pass filter to subtract the classical data from the quantum data. This has the potential to offer an highly precise quantum compass that would eliminate the bias and scale factor drifts commonly associated with gyroscopic components. Meanwhile, the University of Bristolhas founded a quantum solution for increasing security threats. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine are working to uncover the potential quantum computers hold to help understand genetic diseases.Scientists are also using quantum computing to find a vaccine for COVID and other life-threatening diseases.

In July 2017, in collaboration with commercial photonics tools providerM Squared, QuantIC demonstrated how a quantum gravimeter detects the presence of deeply hidden objects by measuring disturbances in the gravitational field. If such a device becomes practical and portable, the team believes it could become invaluable in an early warning system for predicting seismic events and tsunamis.

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What is Quantum Computing, and How does it Help Us? - Analytics Insight

Quantum computing: Photon startup lights up the future of computers and cryptography – ZDNet

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A fast-growing UK startup is quietly making strides in the promising field of quantum photonics. Cambridge-based company Nu Quantum is building devices that can emit and detect quantum particles of light, called single photons. With a freshly secured 2.1 million ($2.71 million) seed investment, these devices could one day underpin sophisticated quantum photonic systems, for applications ranging from quantum communications to quantum computing.

The company is developing high-performance light-emitting and light-detecting components, which operate at the single-photon level and at ambient temperature, and is building a business based on the combination of quantum optics, semiconductor photonics, and information theory, spun out of the University of Cambridge after eight years of research at the Cavendish Laboratory.

"Any quantum photonic system will start with a source of single photons, and end with a detector of single photons," Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, the CEO of Nu Quantum, tells ZDNet. "These technologies are different things, but we are bringing them together as two ends of a system. Being able to controllably do that is our main focus."

SEE: Hiring Kit: Computer Hardware Engineer (TechRepublic Premium)

As Palacios-Berraquero stresses, even generating single quantum particles of light is very technically demanding.

In fact, even the few quantum computers that exist today, which were designed by companies such as Google and IBM, rely on the quantum states of matter, rather than light. In other words, the superconducting qubits that can be found in those tech giants' devices rely on electrons, not photons.

Yet the superconducting qubits found in current quantum computers are, famously, very unstable. The devices have to operate in temperatures colder than those found in deep space to function, because thermal vibrations can cause qubits to fall from their quantum state. On top of impracticality, this also means that it is a huge challenge to scale up the number of qubits in the computer.

A photonic quantum computer could have huge advantages over its matter-based counterpart. Photons are much less prone to interact with their environment, which means they can retain their quantum state for much longer and over long distances. A photonic quantum computer could, in theory, operate at room temperature and as a result, scale up much faster.

The whole challenge comes from creating the first quantum photon, explains Palacios-Berraquero. "Being able to emit one photon at a time is a ground-breaking achievement. In fact, it has become the Holy Grail of quantum optics."

"But I worked on generating single photons for my PhD. That's the IP I brought to the table."

Carmen Palacios-Berraquero and the Nu Quantum team just secured a 2.1 million ($2.71 million) seed investment.

Combined with improved technologies in the fields of nanoscale semi-conductor fabrication, Palacios-Berraquero and her team set off to crack the single-photon generation problem.

Nu Quantum's products come in the form of two little boxes: the first one generates the single photons that can be used to build quantum systems for various applications, and the other measures the quantum signals emitted by the first one. The technology, maintains the startup CEO, is bringing quantum one step closer to commercialization and adoption.

"Between the source and the detector of single photons, many things can happen, from the simplest to the most complex," explains Palacios-Berraquero. "The most complex one being a photonic quantum computer, in which you have thousands of photons on one side and thousands of detectors on the other. And in the middle, of course, you have gates, and entanglement, and and, and and. But that's the most complex example."

A photonic quantum computer is still a very long-term ambition of the startup CEO. A simpler application, which Nu Quantum is already working on delivering commercially with the UK's National Physical Laboratory, is quantum random number generation a technology that can significantly boost the security of cryptographic keys that secure data.

The keys that are currently used to encrypt the data exchanged between two parties are generated thanks to classical algorithms. Classical computing is deterministic: a given input will always produce the same output, meaning that complete randomness is fundamentally impossible. As a result, classical algorithms are predictable to an extent. In cryptography, this means that security keys can be cracked fairly easily, given sufficient computing power.

Not so much with quantum. A fundamental property of quantum photons is that they behave randomly: for example, if a single photon is sent down a path that separates in two ways, there is no way of knowing deterministically which way the particle will choose to go through.

SEE: What is the quantum internet? Everything you need to know about the weird future of quantum networks

The technology that Nu Quantum is developing with the National Physical Laboratory, therefore, consists of a source of single photons, two detectors, and a two-way path linking the three devices. "If we say the right detector is a 1, and the left detector is a 0, you end up with a string of numbers that's totally random," says Palacios-Berraquero. "The more random, the more unpredictable the key is, and the more secure the encryption."

Nu Quantum is now focusing on commercializing quantum random number generation, but the objective is to build up systems that are increasingly complex as the technology improves. Palacios-Berraquero expects that in four or five years, the company will be able to start focusing on the next step.

One day, she hopes, Nu Quantum's devices could be used to connect quantum devices in a quantum internet a decade-long project contemplated by scientists in the US, the EU, and China, which would tap the laws of quantum mechanics to almost literally teleport some quantum information from one quantum device to the next. Doing so is likely to require single photons to be generated and distributed between senders and receivers, because of the light particles' capacity to travel longer distances.

In the shorter term, the startup will be focusing on investing the seed money it has just raised. On the radar, is a brand-new lab and headquarters in Cambridge, and tripling the size of the team with a recruitment drive for scientists, product team members and business functions.

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Quantum computing: Photon startup lights up the future of computers and cryptography - ZDNet

Canadian quantum computing firms partner to spread the technology – IT World Canada

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In a bid to accelerate this countrys efforts in quantum computing, 24 Canadian hardware and software companies specializing in the field are launching an association this week to help their work get commercialized.

Called Quantum Industry Canada, the group says they represent Canadas most commercial-ready technologies, covering applications in quantum computing, sensing, communications, and quantum-safe cryptography.

The group includes Burnaby, B.C., manufacturer D-Wave Systems, Vancouver software developer 1Qbit, Torontos photonic quantum computer maker Xanadu Quantum Technologies, the Canadian division of software maker Zapata Computing, Waterloo, Ont.,-based ISARA which makes quantum-safe solutions and others.

The quantum opportunity has been brewing for many years, association co-chair Michele Mosca of the University of Waterloos Institute for Quantum Computing and the co-founder of two quantum startups, said in an interview, explaining why the new group is starting now. Canadas been a global leader at building up the global opportunity, the science, the workforce, and we didnt want this chance to pass. Weve got over 24 innovative companies, and we wanted to work together to make these companies a commercial success globally.

Its also important to get Canada known as a leader in quantum-related products and services, he added. This will help assure a strong domestic quantum industry as we enter the final stages of quantum readiness.

And while quantum computing is a fundamental new tool, Mosca said, its also important for Canadian organizations to start planning for a quantum computing future, even if the real business value isnt obvious. We dont know exactly when youll get the real business advantage you want to be ready for when quantum computers can give you an advantage.

Adib Ghubril, research director at Toronto-based Info-Tech Research Group, said in an interview creation of such a group is needed. When you want to foster innovation you want to gain critical mass, a certain number of people working in different disciplines it will help motivate them, even maybe compete.

Researchers from startups and even giants like Google, Microsoft, Honeywell and IBM have been throwing billions at creating quantum computers. So are countries, especially China, but also Australia, the U.K., Germany and Switzerland. Many big-name firms are touting projects with experimental equipment, or hybrid hardware that does accelerated computations but dont meet the standard definition of a quantum computer.

True quantum computers may be a decade off, some suggest. Ghubril thinks were 15 years from what he calls reliable, effective quantum computing. Still, last December IDC predicted that by 2023, one-quarter of the Fortune Global 500 will gain a competitive advantage from emerging quantum computing solutions.

Among the recent signposts:

Briefly, quantum computers take the theory of quantum mechanics to change the world of traditional computation of bits represented by zeros and ones. Instead, a bit can be a zero or a one. In a quantum computer, such basic elements are called qubits. With their expected ability to do astonishing fast computations, quantum computers may be able to help pharmaceutical companies create new drugs and nation-states to break encryption protecting government secrets.

Companies are taking different approaches. D-Wave uses a quantum annealing process to make machines it says are suited to solving real-world computing problems today. Xanadu uses what Mosca calls a more circuit-type computing architecture. Theres certainly the potential that some of the nearer-term technologies will offer businesses advantage, especially as they scale.

We know the road towards a full-fledged quantum computer is long. But there are amazing milestones in that direction.

Ghubril says Canada is in the leading pack of countries working on quantum computing. The momentum out of China is enormous, he said, but it looks like the country will focus on using quantum for telecommunications and not business solutions.

From his point of view companies are taking two approaches to quantum computers. Some, like D-Wave, are trying to use quantum ideas to optimize solving modelling problems. The problem is not every problem is an optimization problem, he said. Other companies are trying for the Grand Poobah the real (quantum) computer. So the IBMs of the world are going for the gusto. They want the real deal. They want to solve the material chemistry and biosynthesis and so on. Theyve gone big, but by doing so theyve gone slower. You cant do much on the IBM platform. You can learn a lot, but you cant do much. You can do more on a D-Wave, but you can only do one thing.

Ghburil encourages companies to dabble in the emerging technology.

Thats Infotechs recommendation: Just learn about it. Join a forum, open an account, try a few things. Nobody is going to gain a (financial) competitive advantage. Its a learning advantage.

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Canadian quantum computing firms partner to spread the technology - IT World Canada

The Coding School, IBM Quantum Provide Free Quantum Education to 5,000 Students Around the World – PRNewswire

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LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --The Coding Schoolis collaborating with IBM Quantumto offer a first-of-its-kind quantum computing course for 5,000 high school students and above, designed to make quantum education globally accessible and to provide high-quality virtual STEM education. To ensure an equitable future quantum workforce, the course is free. Students can apply here.

"While quantum computing will revolutionize the world, few opportunities exist to make quantum accessible to K-12 students or the general population today," notes Kiera Peltz, the founder and executive director of The Coding School. "We are proud to collaborate with IBM Quantum, a global leader in quantum computing, to ensure the next generation is equipped with the skills necessary for the future of work."

The course, Qubit by Qubit's Introduction to Quantum Computing, will run for a full academic year, from October 2020 to May 2021, and consists of weekly live lectures, labs, and problem sets. Students are eligible to receive high school course credit for this course. The course is University of California A-G accreditedand is in the process of WASC accreditation. In addition to students registering independently, TCS is working with high schools to offer this course during the school day, making it the first time quantum computing is widely available as a for-credit course at the high school level.

Taught live by MIT and Oxford University quantum scientists, the course has been developed for students with no prior quantum computing experience and introduces students to the foundational concepts of quantum computing, including quantum mechanics, quantum information and computation, and quantum algorithms. Students will work with Qiskit, an open-source quantum software development kit, and the IBM Quantum Experienceplatform to run quantum circuits on real quantum computers. Lead instructors are Francisca Vasconcelos, a Rhodes Scholar and MIT graduate, and Amir Karamlou, a Graduate Fellow in MIT's Engineering Quantum Systems group.

"This year, more than ever before, students and educators are moving beyond the traditional classroom setting to online platforms like The Coding School," said Liz Durst, Director, IBM Quantum & Qiskit Community. "While this is a great challenge, IBM Quantum is excited to sponsor 5,000 studentsfrom around the world who are curious about quantum computing to start learning as early as high school about the fundamentals of how to program real quantum processors. We're proud to be collaborating with the Qubit by Qubit initiative on this Introduction to Quantum Computing course, working together to deliver a community-based approach to learning with our own best educational experts, tools, and resources such as the Qiskit Textbook."

Beyond increasing accessibility to quantum education, TCS and IBM Quantum are dedicated to ensuring the future quantum workforce is diverse and inclusive. Prior quantum courses by TCS have had over 70 percent students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in STEM. For this year-long course, students have already registered from over 60 countries. Students from communities traditionally underrepresented in STEM are strongly encouraged to apply, and high school students will be prioritized.

"I am eager to share my appreciation of this nascent field with students, especially those at the high school level," said Vasconcelos. "Through this TCS and IBM Quantum collaboration, we are training a diverse global cohort of future quantum engineers, researchers, and business leaders."

Apply today:

The course starts on Oct. 18, 2020. Learn more about the program and apply here.

High schools interested in partnering with TCS to offer this program for free as a for-credit or after-school enrichment course should email [emailprotected].

About The Coding School:

About TCS: Qubit by Qubit (QxQ) is an initiative of The Coding School, a 501(c)(3) tech education nonprofit. Founded in 2014, TCS has taught over 15,000 students from 60+ countries how to code. To learn more, visit: http://www.codeconnects.org.

About IBM Quantum

IBM Quantum is an industry-first initiative to build quantum systems for business and science applications. For more information about IBM's quantum computing efforts, please visit ibm.com/quantum.

Media Contact:

Rachel Zuckerman424-310-8999[emailprotected]

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The Coding School, IBM Quantum Provide Free Quantum Education to 5,000 Students Around the World - PRNewswire

Race for quantum supremacy gathers momentum with several companies joining bandwagon, says GlobalData – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

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Kiran Raj, Principal Disruptive Tech Analyst at GlobalData, comments: Qubits can allow to create algorithms for the completion of a task with reduced computational complexity that cannot be achieved with traditional bits. Given such advantages, quantum computers can solve some of the intractable problems in cybersecurity, drug research, financial modelling, traffic optimization and batteries to name a few.

An analysis of GlobalDatas Disruptor Intelligence Center reveals various companies in the race to monetize quantum computing as an everyday tool for business.

IBM's latest quantum computer, accessible via cloud, boasts a 65-qubit Hummingbird chip. It is an advanced version of System Q, its first commercial quantum computer launched in 2019 that has 20 qubits. IBM plans to launch a 1,000-qubit system by the end of 2023.

Alphabet has built a 54-qubit processor Sycamore and demonstrated its quantum supremacy by performing a task of generating a random number in 200 seconds, which it claims would take the most advanced supercomputer 10,000 years to finish the task. The company also unveiled its newest 72-qubit quantum computer Bristlecone.

Alibabas cloud service subsidiary Aliyun and the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly launched an 11-qubit quantum computing service, which is available to the public on its quantum computing cloud platform. Alibaba is the second enterprise to offer the service to public after IBM.

Not just big technology companies, well-funded startups have also targeted the quantum computing space to develop hardware, algorithms and security applications. Some of them are Rigetti, Xanadu, 1Qbit, IonQ, ISARA, Q-CTRL and QxBranch.

Amazon, unlike the tech companies competing to launch quantum computers, is making quantum products of other companies available to users via Braket. It currently supports quantum computing services from D-Wave, IonQ and Rigetti.

Mr Raj concludes: Albeit a far cry from the large-scale mainstream use, quantum computers are gearing up to be a transformative reality. They are highly expensive to build and it is hard to maintain the delicate state of superposition and entanglement of qubits. Despite such challenges, quantum computers will continue to progress into the future where companies may rent them to solve everyday problems the way they currently rent cloud services. It may not come as a surprise that quantum computing one day replaces artificial intelligence as the mainstream technology to help industries tackle problems they never would have attempted to solve before.

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Race for quantum supremacy gathers momentum with several companies joining bandwagon, says GlobalData - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Algorithm Fast-Forwards Quantum Simulations To Solve Out-of-Reach Problems – Technology Networks

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A new algorithm that fast forwards simulations could bring greater use ability to current and near-term quantum computers, opening the way for applications to run past strict time limits that hamper many quantum calculations.

"Quantum computers have a limited time to perform calculations before their useful quantum nature, which we call coherence, breaks down," said Andrew Sornborger of the Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and senior author on a paper announcing the research. "With a new algorithm we have developed and tested, we will be able to fast forward quantum simulations to solve problems that were previously out of reach."

Computers built of quantum components, known as qubits, can potentially solve extremely difficult problems that exceed the capabilities of even the most powerful modern supercomputers. Applications include faster analysis of large data sets, drug development, and unraveling the mysteries of superconductivity, to name a few of the possibilities that could lead to major technological and scientific breakthroughs in the near future.

Recent experiments have demonstrated the potential for quantum computers to solve problems in seconds that would take the best conventional computer millennia to complete. The challenge remains, however, to ensure a quantum computer can run meaningful simulations before quantum coherence breaks down.

"We use machine learning to create a quantum circuit that can approximate a large number of quantum simulation operations all at once," said Sornborger. "The result is a quantum simulator that replaces a sequence of calculations with a single, rapid operation that can complete before quantum coherence breaks down."

The Variational Fast Forwarding (VFF) algorithm that the Los Alamos researchers developed is a hybrid combining aspects of classical and quantum computing. Although well-established theorems exclude the potential of general fast forwarding with absolute fidelity for arbitrary quantum simulations, the researchers get around the problem by tolerating small calculation errors for intermediate times in order to provide useful, if slightly imperfect, predictions.

In principle, the approach allows scientists to quantum-mechanically simulate a system for as long as they like. Practically speaking, the errors that build up as simulation times increase limits potential calculations. Still, the algorithm allows simulations far beyond the time scales that quantum computers can achieve without the VFF algorithm.

One quirk of the process is that it takes twice as many qubits to fast forward a calculation than would make up the quantum computer being fast forwarded. In the newly published paper, for example, the research group confirmed their approach by implementing a VFF algorithm on a two qubit computer to fast forward the calculations that would be performed in a one qubit quantum simulation.

In future work, the Los Alamos researchers plan to explore the limits of the VFF algorithm by increasing the number of qubits they fast forward, and checking the extent to which they can fast forward systems. The research was published September 18, 2020 in the journal npj Quantum Information.

Reference: Crstoiu C, Holmes Z, Iosue J, Cincio L, Coles PJ, Sornborger A. Variational fast forwarding for quantum simulation beyond the coherence time. npj Quantum Information. 2020;6(1):1-10. doi:10.1038/s41534-020-00302-0

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense Market:Revenue Gross, Demand, End-Users, Key Players, Top Competition, Growth & Forecast Insights till…

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Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense Market Production Analysis and Geographical Market Performance Forecast

The most recent Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense Market Research study includes some noteworthy developments with accurate market estimates. It presents a thorough analysis dependent on an extensive research of the various market elements like development situation, market size, potential opportunities, trend analysis, and operational landscape. This market analysis centers on the Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense market business status, presents worth and volume, consumers, market product type, key players, and regional analysis.

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The market study on the global Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense Market profiles some of the leading companies. It provides a brief account of companies operational structure and mentions their strategic initiatives. Analysts have also provided complete information about their existing products and the ones in the pipeline and overview of the research and development statuses of products in these companies.

The prominent players covered in this report: D-Wave Systems Inc, Qxbranch LLC, IBM Corporation, Cambridge Quantum Computing Ltd, 1qb Information Technologies Inc., QC Ware Corp., Magiq Technologies Inc., Station Q-Microsoft Corporation, and Rigetti Computing

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All together now: Experiments with twisted 2D materials catch electrons behaving collectively – UW News

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Engineering | News releases | Research | Science

October 6, 2020

Aerial shot of the University of Washingtons Seattle campus.Mark Stone/University of Washington

Scientists can have ambitious goals: curing disease, exploring distant worlds, clean-energy revolutions. In physics and materials research, some of these ambitious goals are to make ordinary-sounding objects with extraordinary properties: wires that can transport power without any energy loss, or quantum computers that can perform complex calculations that todays computers cannot achieve. And the emerging workbenches for the experiments that gradually move us toward these goals are 2D materials sheets of material that are a single layer of atoms thick.

In a paper published Sept. 14 in the journal Nature Physics, a team led by the University of Washington reports that carefully constructed stacks of graphene a 2D form of carbon can exhibit highly correlated electron properties. The team also found evidence that this type of collective behavior likely relates to the emergence of exotic magnetic states.

Weve created an experimental setup that allows us to manipulate electrons in the graphene layers in a number of exciting new ways, said co-senior author Matthew Yankowitz, a UW assistant professor of physics and of materials science and engineering, as well as a faculty researcher at the UWClean Energy Institute.

Yankowitz led the team with co-senior author Xiaodong Xu, a UW professor of physics and of materials science and engineering. Xu is also a faculty researcher with the UW Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute, the UW Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems and the Clean Energy Institute.

Since 2D materials are one layer of atoms thick, bonds between atoms only form in two dimensions and particles like electrons can only move like pieces on a board game: side-to-side, front-to-back or diagonally, but not up or down. These restrictions can imbue 2D materials with properties that their 3D counterparts lack, and scientists have been probing 2D sheets of different materials to characterize and understand these potentially useful qualities.

But over the past decade, scientists like Yankowitz have also started layering 2D materials like a stack of pancakes and have discovered that, if stacked and rotated in a particular configuration and exposed to extremely low temperatures, these layers can exhibit exotic and unexpected properties.

Illustration of a moir pattern that emerges upon stacking and rotating two sheets of bilayer graphene. Correlated electronic states with magnetic ordering emerge in twisted double bilayer graphene over a small range of twist angles, and can be tuned with gating and electric field.Matthew Yankowitz

The UW team worked with building blocks of bilayer graphene: two sheets of graphene naturally layered together. They stacked one bilayer on top of another for a total of four graphene layers and twisted them so that the layout of carbon atoms between the two bilayers were slightly out of alignment. Past research has shown that introducing these small twist angles between single layers or bilayers of graphene can have big consequences for the behavior of their electrons. With specific configurations of the electric field and charge distribution across the stacked bilayers, electrons display highly correlated behaviors. In other words, they all start doing the same thing or displaying the same properties at the same time.

In these instances, it no longer makes sense to describe what an individual electron is doing, but what all electrons are doing at once, said Yankowitz.

Its like having a room full of people in which a change in any one persons behavior will cause everyone else to react similarly, said lead author Minhao He, a UW doctoral student in physics and a former Clean Energy Institute fellow.

Quantum mechanics underlies these correlated properties, and since the stacked graphene bilayers have a density of more than 1012, or one trillion, electrons per square centimeter, a lot of electrons are behaving collectively.

Optical microscopy image of a twisted double bilayer graphene device.Matthew Yankowitz

The team sought to unravel some of the mysteries of the correlated states in their experimental setup. At temperatures of just a few degrees above absolute zero, the team discovered that they could tune the system into a type of correlated insulating state where it would conduct no electrical charge. Near these insulating states, the team found pockets of highly conducting states with features resembling superconductivity.

Though other teams have recently reported these states, the origins of these features remained a mystery. But the UW teams work has found evidence for a possible explanation. They found that these states appeared to be driven by a quantum mechanical property of electrons called spin a type of angular momentum. In regions near the correlated insulating states, they found evidence that all the electron spins spontaneously align. This may indicate that, near the regions showing correlated insulating states, a form of ferromagnetism is emerging not superconductivity. But additional experiments would need to verify this.

These discoveries are the latest example of the many surprises that are in store when conducting experiments with 2D materials.

Much of what were doing in this line of research is to try to create, understand and control emerging electronic states, which can be either correlated or topological, or possess both properties, said Xu. There could be a lot we can do with these states down the road a form of quantum computing, a new energy-harvesting device, or some new types of sensors, for example and frankly we wont know until we try.

In the meantime, expect stacks, bilayers and twist angles to keep making waves.

Co-authors are UW researchers Yuhao Li and Yang Liu; UW physics doctoral student and Clean Energy Institute fellow Jiaqi Cai; and K. Watanabe and T. Taniguchi with the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. The research was funded by the UW Molecular Engineering Materials Center, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center; the China Scholarship Council; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan; and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

###

For more information, contact Xu at xuxd@uw.edu and Yankowitz at myank@uw.edu.

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All together now: Experiments with twisted 2D materials catch electrons behaving collectively - UW News

Quantum Computing Market : Advancements and Efficient Clinical Outcomes would Drive the Industry Growth with Top Key Player’s Analysis – The Daily…

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Kenneth Research has published a detailed report on Quantum Computing Market which has been categorized by market size, growth indicators and encompasses detailed market analysis on macro trends and region-wise growth in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa region. The report also includes the challenges that are affecting the growth of the industry and offers strategic evaluation that is required to boost the growth of the market over the period of 2019-2026.

The report covers the forecast and analysis of the Quantum Computing Market on a global and regional level. The study provides historical data from 2015 to 2019 along with a forecast from 2019-2026 based on revenue (USD Million). In 2018, the worldwide GDP stood at USD 84,740.3 Billion as compared to the GDP of USD 80,144.5 Billion in 2017, marked a growth of 5.73% in 2018 over previous year according to the data quoted by International Monetary Fund. This is likely to impel the growth of Quantum Computing Marketover the period 2019-2026.

The Final Report will cover the impact analysis of COVID-19 on this industry.

Request To Download Sample of This Strategic Report:https://www.kennethresearch.com/sample-request-10307113The report provides a unique tool for evaluating the Market, highlighting opportunities, and supporting strategic and tactical decision-making. This report recognizes that in this rapidly-evolving and competitive environment, up-to-date marketing information is essential to monitor performance and make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, and focuses on markets capacities and on the changing structure of the Quantum Computing.

The quantum annealing category held the largest share under the technology segment in 2019. This is attributed to successful overcoming of physical challenges to develop this technology and further incorporated in bigger systems. The BFSI category held the largest share in the quantum computing market in 2019. This is owing to the fact that the industry is growing positively across the globe, and large banks are focusing on investing in this potential technology that can enable them to streamline their business processes, along with unbeatable levels of security

Automotive to lead quantum computing market for consulting solutions during forecast periodAmong the end-user industries considered, space and defense is the largest contributor to the overall quantum computing market, and it is expected to account for a maximum share of the market in 2019. The need for secure communications and data transfer, with the demand in faster data operations, is expected to boost the demand for quantum computing consulting solutions in this industry. The market for the automotive industry is expected to grow at the highest CAGR

Quantum computing can best be defined as the use of the attributes and principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations and solve problems. The global market for quantum computing is being driven largely by the desire to increase the capability of modeling and simulating complex data, improve the efficiency or optimization of systems or processes, and solve problems with more precision. A quantum system can process and analyze all data simultaneously and then return the best solution, along with thousands of close alternatives all within microseconds, according to a new report from Tractica.

2018 was a growth year for the market, as businesses from the BFSI sector showed tremendous interest in quantum computing and the trend is likely to continue in 2019 and beyond. Moreover, the public sector presents significant growth opportunity for the market. In the forthcoming years, the application opportunities for quantum computing is expected to expand further, which may lead to a higher commercial interest in the technology.

Market SegmentationThe report focuses on the following end-user sectors and applications for quantum computing:By Based on offering*Consulting solutions*Systems

By End-user sectors*Government.*Academic.*Healthcare.*Military.*Geology/energy.*Information technology.*Transport/logistics.*Finance/economics.*Meteorology.*Chemicals.

By Applications*Basic research.*Quantum simulation.*Optimization problems.*Sampling.

By Regional AnanlysisNorth America*U.S.*Canada

Europe*Germany*UK*France*Italy*Spain*Belgium*Russia*Netherlands*Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific*China*India*Japan*Korea*Singapore*Malaysia*Indonesia*Thailand*Philippines*Rest of Asia-Pacific

Latin America*Brazil*Mexico*Argentina*Rest of LATAM

Middle East & Africa*UAE*Saudi Arabia*South Africa*Rest of MEA

The quantum computing market is highly competitive with high strategic stakes and product differentiation. Some of the key market players include International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Telstra Corporation Limited, IonQ Inc., Silicon Quantum Computing, Huawei Investment & Holding Co. Ltd., Alphabet Inc., Rigetti & Co Inc., Microsoft Corporation, D-Wave Systems Inc., Zapata Computing Inc., and Intel Corporation.

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Competitive Analysis:The Quantum Computing Market report examines competitive scenario by analyzing key players in the market. The company profiling of leading market players is included in this report with Porters five forces analysis and Value Chain analysis. Further, the strategies exercised by the companies for expansion of business through mergers, acquisitions, and other business development measures are discussed in the report. The financial parameters which are assessed include the sales, profits and the overall revenue generated by the key players of Market.

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Kenneth Research is a reselling agency which focuses on multi-client market research database. The primary goal of the agency is to help industry professionals including various individuals and organizations gain an extra edge of competitiveness and help them identify the market trends and scope. The quality reports provided by the agency aims to make decision making easier for industry professionals and take firm decisions which helps them to form strategies after complete assessment of the market. Some of the industries under focus include healthcare & pharmaceuticals, ICT & Telecom, automotive and transportation, energy and power, chemicals, FMCG, food and beverages, aerospace and defense and others. Kenneth Research also focuses on strategic business consultancy services and offers a single platform for the best industry market research reports.

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Quantum Computing Market : Advancements and Efficient Clinical Outcomes would Drive the Industry Growth with Top Key Player's Analysis - The Daily...

NATO Allies Watch US Election Amid Strained Transatlantic Ties – Voice of America

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LONDON - Americas allies in Europe are watching closely as the U.S. presidential election enters its final leg.

Transatlantic relations have at times been strained since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, and analysts say some European capitals hope for a return to more stability under a Joe Biden presidency.

Other European NATO allies have welcomed Trumps demands for Europe to pull its weight and meet military spending targets, as the continent faces several strategic challenges on its borders.

Shortly after his 2016 election victory, Trump called NATO obsolete, because he said the organization "wasnt taking care of terror. That alarmed NATO allies shaken by Russias 2014 forceful annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Different tone

By 2017, Trump's tone had changed. Hosting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House in April of that year, Trump reaffirmed his support for the alliance.

The secretary-general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change. And now, they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete, Trump told reporters.

For Europe, the unpredictability has been difficult, security analyst Julie Norman of University College London said in a recent interview with VOA.

"His foreign policy has tended to be rather rash, rather unpredictable. And of course for allies, thats not really something that you want. You want an ally whos going to be reliable, especially an ally like the United States that traditionally has been such a heavyweight, Norman said.

What do NATO allies think of Biden? Since the presidential campaign has had little debate on foreign policy so far, according to Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, they must look at Bidens record.

We know that Trump is no friend at all of NATO, and we believe that Biden, from his past record, is much more favorable to NATO. And NATO remains the bedrock of British security, as well as European security more generally, Bond told VOA.

Trumps supporters often say he should be judged on his actions rather than his words. The president oversaw the deployment of U.S. troops and hardware to Poland in 2017 as part of NATOs Enhanced Forward Presence mission, the biggest deployment since the Cold War. Trump remains a popular figure in Poland and other former Soviet states.

For some of those states, there would still probably be a preference for Trump to stay in the White House, Norman said.

Hard truths for Europe?

Trump has accused Germany of being delinquent in its payments to NATO and plans to withdraw 20,000 troops stationed in the country. While the tone is abrasive, the president tells truths that Europe does not want to hear, argued political commentator Matthew Parris, a former British Conservative member of Parliament.

He has, in an instinctive way, been right about quite a few things that perhaps there was a need to push back against China on trade issues. Perhaps America is going to end up in a very similar place to Britain on COVID. Perhaps nobody actually knows the answer, and we dont know the answer any better than Donald Trump. Hes right about NATO spending. Hes right about many European countries not pulling their weight, Parris told VOA in a recent interview.

Trump has taken an increasingly tough stance on China. That may not change, whoever wins the White House, said Norman.

Many Democrats, Biden included, share some of the concerns that Trump had around China and that many Europeans have around China, as well," she said. "Thats in regard to security issues, and to some degree, and perhaps talked about more on the European side, human rights issues, as well.

Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at the Chatham House policy institute in London, said the biggest transatlantic divergence has been on climate change. Many in Europe see Biden as more sympathetic to their viewpoint.

Stakes are high

Here is a value and a collective problem that Europeans can only achieve a solution to if they work with the United States, and if they work with China. So, I think it's very clear to Europe that the stakes could not be higher in this election from what is arguably the most important issue, at the international level, over the next 10 or 15 years, she said.

From Russia to conflicts in Libya and the Middle East to tensions with Turkey, Europe faces numerous strategic challenges. Despite the European Unions call for the bloc to be more self-sufficient, analysts say the U.S. will likely play a key role in each of these arenas. Allies are watching closely as the United States chooses its next commander in chief.

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NATO Allies Watch US Election Amid Strained Transatlantic Ties - Voice of America