Defense giant Boeing today announced plans to demonstrate quantum networking in space — a technological feat that, if successful, could help change the way the military processes data and identifies targets.

The company plans to launch the effort, dubbed Q4S, in 2026 using its own research-and development money. The experiment will demonstrate a concept called entanglement swapping — the ability to bring together, or entangle, the quantum states surrounding particles that haven’t previously interacted. The process is required to build expansive, hack-resistant networks in space.

Boeing set out to tackle the entanglement swapping challenge in 2021 with the goal to move as quickly as possible to push quantum technology as far as it could, according to Jay Lowell, chief engineer for disruptive computing, networks and sensors. Through the demonstration, the company hopes to learn more about how to build quantum networks that could prove transformational for a number of industries, including defense.

“We chose a goal that nobody else had accomplished, and we saw no one out there trying to do this,” Lowell told Defense News in a recent interview. “We knew it needed to be done to get where we want to go, which is the development of global quantum networks that connect sensors and computers around the world.”

The U.S. government spends about $1 billion each year on quantum technology development through its National Quantum Initiative, which it established in 2018 to help maintain an edge over China.

In the last decade, China has conducted several significant experiments aimed at reaching breakthroughs in quantum networking. In 2016, the country’s Quantum Experiments at Space Scale demo showed that it was possible to establish quantum keys across long distances. In 2022, it followed up that effort with the Jinan-1 launch, generating keys at a much faster rate.

Lowell described entanglement swapping as “more than twice as hard” as key distribution.

“From an impact perspective, these are the technologies that we need to validate are going to work in order to have the hope of building the quantum networks we want to build,” he said.

The yearlong mission aims to demonstrate entanglement swapping between two sources within a single satellite. Working with its payload and technology partner, HRL Laboratories, Boeing has completed several key design reviews and will run an integrated payload test this month. The payload is slated to be delivered within a year, Lowell said.

California-based Astro Digital, which is building the satellite the payload will fly on, will start production of the spacecraft in 2025.

Boeing’s focus throughout design and testing has been to build backups and contingencies into the system to reduce risk of mission failure, Lowell said.

“There are only a few things that, if they fail, we’re dead,” he said. “We’re pretty confident that if those few things work, everything else will go fine and we will get very useful information out of this experiment.”

If Q4S is able to demonstrate entanglement swapping within one spacecraft, Boeing’s next target is to develop a multi-satellite experiment to prove the capability works within a small, space-based network. Lowell said the company is exploring government and commercial partnerships for the next phase, but could also build the mission with internal funding.

Q4S and any future experiments are part of a broader emphasis within Boeing on demonstrating new technologies as well as how those capabilities fit within the company’s existing portfolio, he noted.

“The better we do that, the easier it is for our customers to understand the context of what it is that they’re getting in a way that’s recognizable to them,” Lowell said. “The better conceived the demonstration is, the closer it allows the customer to see the vision that we have and to start sharing in that vision or even pull us along further towards their vision.”

Until now, NASA has paid Boeing roughly $2.7 billion of the $4.6 billion total potential value of its commercial crew contract, according to Finch. The Starliner contract NASA awarded Boeing in 2014 originally had a maximum value of $4.2 billion, but contract modifications since 2014 have added $400 million to the deal. Most of the money NASA has paid Boeing to date has been for Starliner development costs, while the remaining funds under the contract cover future service payments for operational flights.

So, if Boeing walked away from Starliner, the company would be giving up nearly $1.9 billion on potential revenue from NASA, still more than the $1.6 billion in losses it has taken on the program so far.

Ready for Departure

Since deciding last month to fly Starliner home without its crew, NASA managers have reviewed plans for the spacecraft to depart the space station in autopilot mode. The preparations included updating Starliner’s software parameters to enable the autonomous undocking. Then, last Thursday, NASA officials convened a Flight Readiness Review and cleared Starliner to return to Earth.

“Everybody polled ‘go’ in that review, pending the operational status of the vehicle and the landing weather,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. “So we’re proceeding toward undock and landing on Friday.”

As Starliner approached the space station on June 6, five of the ship’s 28 Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters dropped offline, requiring Wilmore to take manual control while ground controllers tried to recover some of the control jets.

Engineers tested thrusters and analyzed data for over two months to track down the cause of the thrusters’ failure. Ground teams were able to bring four of the five failed thrusters back online, but NASA officials could not assure themselves the same thrusters, or perhaps more, won’t overheat again and fail as Starliner departs the station and heads for reentry.

Investigators found that repeated pulses of the RCS jets led to rising temperatures in the thrusters. This likely caused a seal in each of the problematic thrusters to bulge and deform, restricting the flow of propellant, according to NASA officials.

Stich said Wednesday that possible solutions to the problem on future Starliner flights range from changing the way the ship fires its thrusters to prevent overheating, to changing the seal design, to modifying the doghouse-shaped propulsion pods where the thrusters reside on the spacecraft’s service module. The design of these “doghouses” cause them to retain heat like a thermos, exacerbating the thermal problem.

Boeing and NASA also must resolve helium leaks that plagued the Starliner test flight. Engineers believe a separate set of degraded seals is causing helium leaks, which the spacecraft uses to pressurize the propulsion system and drive propellants into its thrusters. Ground controllers have closed valves to isolate the helium system and close off the leaks while Starliner has been docked at the space station. Those isolation valves will open before Starliner departs the space station, but NASA officials say the spacecraft has more than enough helium for the six-hour flight from undocking until landing Friday night.

Wilmore and Williams originally planned to stay at the space station for around eight days, but will now remain as residents on the complex until February, when they will come home in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Dana Weigel, NASA’s ISS program manager, said Wednesday that the Starliner astronauts, both veterans of previous six-month stays on the space station, are fully trained to perform spacewalks, operate the lab’s robotic arm, and conduct maintenance and scientific experiments. They will be fully integrated into the space station’s long-duration crew, which usually includes seven residents. With the Starliner crew’s extended stay, the station crew size has grown to nine people.

The crew shakeup forced NASA to remove two astronauts from the next SpaceX Dragon crew flight launching to the ISS later this month, leaving two seats empty to accommodate Wilmore and Williams when the Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth early next year. This upcoming SpaceX crew rotation will bring the station crew size back to its usual complement of seven US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.