Luxembourg Joins Four-Nation Bid to Build Europe's Quantum-Secure Sky Links

Luxembourg has signed on to a four-nation European effort to build the physical backbone of a future quantum-secure communications network, placing the Grand Duchy at the centre of the European Union's push for an eavesdrop-resistant digital infrastructure.

The project, called TransEuroOGS, will establish a network of eight interoperable optical ground stations across Germany, Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg, designed to enable satellite-based, quantum-secure communication. With a total budget of roughly 18 million euros, it is co-funded by the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF Digital) programme and by national contributions from the four participating member states.

The three-and-a-half-year project was officially launched at a consortium meeting held on 29 and 30 April 2026 in Berlin and Jena. It is coordinated by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF), with Dr. Torsten Siebert serving as central coordinator.

From the lab to deployable infrastructure

TransEuroOGS forms part of the broader EuroQCI (European Quantum Communication Infrastructure) initiative, which brings together all 27 EU member states, the European Commission and the European Space Agency to construct a secure quantum communication network across the continent. EuroQCI aims to protect sensitive data and critical infrastructure using quantum key distribution (QKD), contributing to European digital sovereignty with the goal of putting Europe at the cutting edge of quantum capabilities by 2030.

Quantum key distribution exchanges encryption keys in a way that makes any attempt at eavesdropping immediately detectable, a property rooted in the laws of physics rather than the difficulty of a mathematical problem. The technology is now moving from laboratory demonstration toward deployable, funded infrastructure, and TransEuroOGS represents a concrete step in building the ground segment that will connect future quantum satellites to terrestrial networks.

The new project will harmonise the eight ground stations technically and prepare them for upcoming quantum satellite missions, notably the EAGLE-1 demonstrator and the future SAGA constellation. EAGLE-1 is a European technology-demonstration satellite for in-orbit testing of space-based quantum key distribution, developed by a consortium led by Luxembourg-headquartered satellite operator SES for the EU and ESA.

It is a privilege and pleasure to collaborate with all of my colleagues in Ireland, Luxembourg, Germany and Greece for taking on the challenges involved in linking the space and terrestrial segment in EuroQCI with a network of optical ground stations ranging over the northwest to southeast of Europe.

Those were the words of Torsten Siebert, the project's central coordinator at the Fraunhofer IOF, describing the cross-border ambition of the undertaking.

Luxembourg's stake in the network

Luxembourg's contribution draws on several national institutions. The participants include the Department of Media, Connectivity and Digital Policy, the University of Luxembourg's SIGCOM group, the Restena Foundation and HITEC Luxembourg.

For the Grand Duchy, the project ties its national digital-sovereignty ambitions to a tangible, multi-country undertaking rather than abstract policy. Luxembourg is already home to SES, which leads the EAGLE-1 mission, and its involvement in TransEuroOGS reinforces its position within Europe's sovereign, eavesdrop-resistant communications agenda. The story sits at the intersection of cybersecurity, space, EU industrial strategy and the bloc's 2030 Digital Decade quantum targets.

Testing links across varied skies

A central rationale for the project is geography. The station sites span islands and mainland as well as rural and urban locations from the northwest to the southeast of Europe, allowing the consortium to test quantum-optical links under a wide range of atmospheric conditions, a critical factor for reliable satellite-to-ground transmission.

Germany's segment illustrates the approach. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) is studying quantum optical links at three ground-station nodes in Jena, Erlangen and Oberpfaffenhofen, with Prof. Christoph Marquardt acting as national coordinator for Germany. The German national co-funding comes from the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), under EU Grant Agreement No. 101249815.

Marquardt underlined the experimental value of the spread-out network.

TransEuroOGS is a unique opportunity to test satellite-based quantum communication across different technical and atmospheric boundary conditions all over Europe.

The political stakes were highlighted by Matthias Hauer, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, who said: "Together with our European partners, we are shaping the future of quantum communication. Germany is therefore actively involved in the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure EuroQCI."

By harmonising the ground stations and readying them for the next generation of quantum satellites, the consortium hopes to lay one of the first physical foundations for a continent-wide, unhackable communications layer intended to safeguard government, finance, health and energy networks against the threats of the quantum era.