![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.satellitetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IonQ-and-Capella-Interview-800x400.jpg\")
Capella CEO Frank Backes has long had an emphasis on cybersecurity for space systems, and was the founder and former president of Space ISAC. He sees the potential of the combination and bringing quantum networking to space. <\/p>\n
\u201cIonQ\u2019s strategic plan is the first time that I have seen the full capability of compute, networking, and security all coming together in one strategic plan that is now mature enough to start to be deployed operationally,\u201d Backes told Via Satellite<\/i>. <\/p>\n
He believes that commercial space adoption has been held back by being limited to commercial practices to move data, and quantum security will bring greater adoption. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a nation standpoint, the U.S. [and] our allied nations, they want an absolute, trusted, secure architecture from the point of tasking a system for intelligence information, to the point of capturing that information on the satellite, transferring that data to a processing capability either on orbit or on the ground, and then delivering the post-processed analytics information back to the customer who needs it,\u201d Backes said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey need a complete, end-to-end system that they can accurately trust. There\u2019s a tremendous customer base globally for that kind of capability,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
[This feature was first published for Space Security Sentinel, a new cyber newsletter from the teams at Via Satellite and CyberSat. Learn more and subscribe here]<\/em><\/p>\n Capella Space has an existing contract with the Space Development Agency to fly an optical terminal onboard its satellites to space-to-space and space-to-ground optical communications. Capella plans to take IonQ technology that has already been validated on the ground and deploy it as a payload on its spacecraft, Backes said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe basic research and the validation of the technology has already occurred,\u201d Backes said. \u201cIt\u2019s really about getting that technology \u2018space-ready\u2019 to go into an architecture that was already being built to support optical interlinks.\u201d <\/p>\n Capella will maintain its brand and its work in SAR and Earth Observation, and also move into interconnecting space networking with terrestrial networking, Backes said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe entire Earth Observation market desperately needs a high-speed, trusted transport layer for our Earth Observation data,\u201d Backes said. \u201cIt needs to be more than just a government-controlled infrastructure. The world needs that capability.\u201d <\/p>\n Capella Space is part of a string of recent acquisitions for IonQ to accelerate the deployment of interconnected quantum systems, including QKD company ID Quantique; quantum networking company Lightsynq. IonQ is also in the midst of a deal to acquire quantum computer manufacturer Oxford Ionics and has a development deal with satellite terminal manufacturer Intellian. <\/p>\n In terms of Capella Space, de Masi says that IonQ can move faster by owning in-space assets and pursuing vertical integration, and he highlighted Capella\u2019s work with government agencies as a growth vector for IonQ. <\/p>\n He believes quantum computers\u2019 impact on cybersecurity is going to take the world by surprise, noting that quantum computers are moving forward faster than Moore\u2019s Law, doubling at an exponential rate. <\/p>\n While there\u2019s debate about when \u201cQ-Day\u201d will happen, referring to the hypothetical day in the future that quantum computers will be able to crack encryption that secures the internet, de Masi cautions it\u2019s coming sooner than people expect. \u201cThat\u2019s going to take the world by surprise on the security front,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t recognize that QKD is mathematically unbreakable,\u201d de Masi said. \u201cIt\u2019s safe to say that most of our QKD customers today are the ones that are not in the news for data breaches. We\u2019re at the base layer of the security stack. If that\u2019s not hackable, you\u2019re generally in good shape.\u201d <\/p>\n The Capella acquisition brings a space component to IonQ\u2019s roadmap, even the potential for a future quantum computing data center in space. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re building the world\u2019s most advanced quantum computers, and perfectly secure quantum network communications, but we recognize that the world today expects a seamless, full internet experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want quantum computers that are networked together, and they want quantum security on every piece of the network, and that\u2019s where Capella comes in.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With IonQ\u2019s acquisition of Capella Space, the quantum computing company is looking to expand the security of quantum networking to satellite networks. IonQ, based in College Park, Maryland, operates in both quantum computing and quantum networking, which ensures the security of communications. In July, the company closed its acquisition of Earth Observation satellite company Capella […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48588,"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":[],"class_list":["post-48587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48587"}],"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=48587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}