Researchers have operated a programmable quantum photonic processor in orbit for eight months, showing that quantum light systems can survive the harsh conditions of space.

The payload was built by teams from the University of Vienna, the German Aerospace Center and Italy’s National Research Council. It launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-14 mission in June 2025 aboard a D-Orbit vehicle, orbiting about 317 miles above Earth.

The device generated and manipulated pairs of photons through a six-path glass chip. It demonstrated two-photon quantum interference, a basic step toward photonic quantum computing, with a visibility of 0.908.

Three of the six photon detectors failed after launch. Sunlight noise and radiation damage also hurt performance, but the system kept working.

The results are posted on the arXiv preprint server and are not yet peer-reviewed. The team wants the chip to one day process Earth-observation data in orbit.

The 9.8 kg payload consumed about 10 watts of power. The researchers say the next step is feeding real Earth-observation data into the chip in orbit.