EduRankAI · Frontier research programme
Akasha-Q.
Quantum-secure communications, ground to orbit.
A communications platform, not a satellite. Entropy at the edge. Keys that survive a quantum adversary. Authenticated commands. Detection records signed into an unforgeable evidence ledger. Built to reach as far as the link has to go: an optical bench, a metro span, a high-altitude relay, and finally a constellation.
Design study · nothing on this page has flown
We are not launching quantum satellites. We are building the trust layer that would make one worth launching — entropy, keys, authenticated command and an unforgeable record — and taking it up the ladder one rung at a time, each rung retiring a risk the rung above cannot afford to meet for the first time. The Mother ship is our flight platform; sub-microradian pointing is our moat.
What Akasha-Q is
Akasha-Q is a quantum-secure communications platform: five layers that together let two parties exchange keys, issue commands, and write records a future adversary cannot forge or quietly decrypt. It is a programme in its own right, with its own ladder and its own reasons to exist.
It is also the layer the Viśvambhara autonomous swarm is designed against — an uncrewed fleet is exactly the kind of system that has to assume its uplink is under attack. That programme is the first platform to carry an Akasha-Q terminal, not the reason the platform exists.
Entropy
Randomness at the edge
Quantum entropy generated at the terminal, not drawn from an operating-system pool that a compromised host controls. Every key above this layer is only as unguessable as this layer is.
Key exchange
QKD, with a software floor under it
BB84, decoy-state and BBM92 where a line of sight and the hardware exist. Standardised post-quantum key encapsulation everywhere else, on the same key-management plane. The honest position: post-quantum cryptography in software covers most of what most operators need today, and it ships without an optical terminal. Quantum key distribution is what you add when key exchange must rest on physics rather than on an unproven hardness assumption.
Command
An uplink that cannot be forged
Authenticated command and control over narrow-beam optical links. A forged uplink is the failure that turns an autonomous system into a hostile one, and a narrow beam is spatially hard to jam in a way a broadcast radio channel is not.
Evidence
A record that survives the decade
Detections, decisions and transactions signed with post-quantum signatures anchored to distributed key material, so a record written today is still defensible after an adversary acquires a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.
Timing
Time and position, cross-checked
Authenticated timing relayed from the airborne or orbital node and cross-checked against the national satellite-navigation framework, so a spoofed position signal has to disagree with something instead of simply being believed.
What it defends against
Five attack surfaces, in the order they tend to be exploited:
- Command injection / spoofing — a forged uplink could redirect an autonomous fleet and defeat hard-coded refusal classes. A QKD/PQC-authenticated command channel mitigates it.
- Link jamming / denial of service — narrow-beam free-space optical (FSO) links are spatially hard to jam; a verdict-only-upstream model minimises bandwidth dependence.
- Interception of the intelligence picture — recorded today, decrypted later. QKD-derived keys are information-theoretically secure.
- Harvest-now, decrypt-later on the evidence chain — PQC signatures (ML-DSA) anchored to QKD-distributed keys make the chain durable for decades.
- Position & timing spoofing — quantum-authenticated timing relayed from the airborne or orbital node; cross-checked against the national satellite-navigation framework.
How far it reaches
Six rungs, ground to constellation. Each exists to retire a specific risk before the next one has to meet it somewhere failure is expensive. The status word on every card is the current one.
01
Optical bench
Terrestrial bench
Optical bench BB84 + decoy-state at a partner photonics lab. Retire the QKD-protocol risk on the ground, where a failure costs an afternoon.
Design study
02
Metro, tens of km
Fibre and short free-space
Key exchange between two fixed terminals across a city — dark fibre where it exists, a line-of-sight optical span where it does not. Retires terminal engineering and the key-management plumbing.
Design study
03
20-30 km altitude
UAV / HAPS relay
Free-space optical link between two terminals at 20-30 km altitude. Retire atmospheric and atmospheric-pointing risk, the two no bench can retire.
Design study
04
Low Earth orbit
CubeSat demonstrator
Low-cost CubeSat with a single-photon detector + space-qualified optical bench. Retire the launch, thermal-cycling and space-qualified-optics risk.
Design study
05
Orbit to ground, service grade
Operational LEO satellite
First service-grade satellite delivering key material to ground stations on a schedule an operator can plan around. Shares a bus with the Viśvambhara Mother rather than buying its own.
Design study
06
Global
Constellation
Continuous global key-distribution layer for every fleet and ground terminal on the network. The end state the five rungs below it exist to reach.
Design study
Application wins
Five contexts where the quantum layer is the difference between a demo and a deployable system. None of them is deployed today.
Win 01
Border-patrol swarm command
Forge-proof authenticated tasking; jam-resistant FSO uplink. The Viśvambhara swarm is the first fleet designed against this layer, not the reason it exists.
Win 02
Evidence-grade detection chain
Court-admissible record durable against a future cryptographically-relevant quantum computer.
Win 03
Disaster-zone GHQ link
An FSO uplink that does not depend on undamaged terrestrial fibre.
Win 04
Strategic-asset key rotation
Long-lived material durable against harvest-now decrypt-later.
Win 05
Central-bank settlement layer
Quantum-authenticated settlement messages with an offline backstop.
The real bottleneck
It is optomechanical engineering, not quantum physics. The protocols are textbook and largely de-risked nationally. What stops programmes for years is the optical payload: sub-microradian acquisition, tracking and pointing at a counterpart moving at 7.6 km/s; a bench that holds sub-micron alignment through orbital thermal cycling; single-photon detectors that survive radiation; and a payload that survives launch and then re-aligns itself in orbit. Hiring and budget follow that reading — pointing and optomechanics first, quantum specialists second.
Restricted briefing
The full execution blueprint requires approved access.
The detailed sections — corrected technical reality, the optomechanical moat, integration architecture, intellectual-property strategy, roadmap and budget, risk register and exit scenarios — are not part of the public preview. Access is granted through the same review as the rest of the restricted research line.
Sign in to apply →Related programme
Viśvambhara
The autonomous aerospace swarm designed against this trust layer, and the first platform to carry a terminal.
Programme charter
Parts & artifacts
The governing document series: the master system architecture, the demonstration and validation strategy, and all 28 completion artifacts.
The rest of the lab
Ecosystem
Every venture and research line EduRankAI is building, with what is live and what is not.
Hiring
Open roles
No team is staffed against this programme yet — the optomechanics and pointing-systems roles it would hire do not exist as postings. Roles are listed by team, not by venture.