{"id":1683,"date":"2026-04-06T09:28:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/redwire-corporation-awarded-esa-qkdsat-quantum-secure-spacecraft-contract\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:28:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:28:57","slug":"redwire-corporation-awarded-esa-qkdsat-quantum-secure-spacecraft-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/redwire-corporation-awarded-esa-qkdsat-quantum-secure-spacecraft-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Redwire Corporation Awarded ESA QKDSat Quantum-Secure Spacecraft Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/1775467875639_639110646775795054.webp\" class=\"imageload removeImageattr fr-dib\" width=\"711\" height=\"404\" alt=\"Redwire Corporation Awarded ESA QKDSat Quantum-Secure Spacecraft Contract\" data-original=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/1775467875639_639110646775795054.webp\" style=\"\"><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/1775467875639_639110646775795054.webp\"><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"711\"><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"404\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Redwire Corporation<\/strong>, a global leader in space and defence technology solutions, announced that it has been awarded a contract to develop a quantum-secure satellite under the European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) Quantum Key Distribution Satellite (QKDSat), within ESA\u2019s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) Partnership Projects program. Redwire will manufacture and deliver its European-built Hammerhead spacecraft, equipped with the QKD payload and Redwire\u2019s ADPMS-3 suite of avionics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For QKDSat, Redwire is part of a multi-country consortium that includes Honeywell Aerospace and aims to provide quantum key distribution via satellite to safeguard against communication data breaches. Honeywell\u2019s UK team is leading an industrial consortium that includes: Redwire Space of Belgium; Craft Prospect and British Telecom of the United Kingdom; QTLabs of Austria, Honeywell\u2019s team in Canada, and several key players in Czechia and Switzerland.<\/p>\n<div class=\"widget-layout related-content-also-read-box my-3\">\n<h4 class=\"mb-0\">Also Read: Quantum Technologies in Space<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Quantum secure communications are critical to the future of European autonomy. We are proud to leverage Redwire\u2019s expertise in spacecraft development and avionics to support QKDSat,\u201d said <strong>Marc Dielissen<\/strong><strong>, Executive Vice President of Redwire Europe.<\/strong> \u201cSatellite quantum key distribution enables truly global, long-distance secure communication, overcoming the range limitations of terrestrial fiber-based quantum networks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWith QKDSat, we will take a leading role in ensuring resilient and secure commercial and governmental communications across our Member States, particularly against a backdrop of ever-increasing cyber threats. We look forward to collaborating closely with Redwire and partners as we utilise their high-class expertise to deliver the future of satellite communications,\u201d said <strong>Laurent Jaffart<\/strong><strong>, Director of Resilience, Navigation and Connectivity at ESA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">QKDSat leverages Redwire\u2019s expertise in state-of-the-art satellite design, development, integration, testing, and operations with Honeywell\u2019s advanced optical payload terminal to accelerate the deployment of ultra-secure communication infrastructure in space. Redwire\u2019s facility in Belgium has more than 50 years of spaceflight heritage, developing spacecraft platforms and successfully delivering innovative technology for critical ESA programs, including Proba-1, Proba-2, Proba-V, Proba-3, \u03a3yndeo-3, and the Atmospheric Limb Tracker for Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere (ALTIUS) missions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Redwire Corporation, a global leader in space and defence technology solutions, announced that it has been awarded a contract to develop a quantum-secure satellite under the European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) Quantum Key Distribution Satellite (QKDSat), within ESA\u2019s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) Partnership Projects program. Redwire will manufacture and deliver its European-built Hammerhead spacecraft, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[39,76,20],"class_list":["post-1683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerospace","tag-payload-adapters","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}