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Microsoft adds a new superposition to quantum team

Pasqal quantum computing hardware
Pasqal’s Fresnel quantum computer makes use of the company’s neutral-atom technology. (Pasqal Photo)

Microsoft’s Azure Quantum cloud computing service will be adding a brand-new tool to its toolbox: Pasqal’s neutral-atom quantum processing system.

When the French company’s system becomes available later this year, it will provide a method for processing data that’s different from the other methods offered through Azure Quantum.

“Running algorithms on Pasqal’s neutral-atom hardware opens the door to unique capabilities no other quantum system offers,” Pasqal CEO and founder Georges-Olivier Reymond said in a news release.

Unlike the rigid one-or-zero approach of classical computing, quantum computing makes use of quantum bits, or qubits, that can essentially represent different states simultaneously until the results are read out.

Theoretically, the quantum approach should be able to solve certain types of problems, such as network optimization, much more quickly than the classical approach. The technology could open new frontiers in fields ranging from traffic planning to drug development to data encryption.

Azure Quantum — and other cloud-based services including Amazon Braket, IBM Quantum, D-Wave Leap and Google Quantum AI — are already experimenting with hybrid quantum algorithms and looking forward to the development of full-stack, general-purpose quantum computing systems.

The two main avenues for developing quantum hardware make use of superconducting circuits and ion traps. Pasqal takes a different approach, involving neutral atoms that are manipulated at room temperature with laser-powered optical “tweezers.”

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Rocket architect fills in for comedian on space trip

Gary Lai with New Shepard crew capsule
Gary Lai is the chief architect of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital launch system. (Blue Origin Photo)

The soon-to-be spaceflier who’ll replace “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson on the crew for next week’s launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship already knows what it’s like to get ready for liftoff.

That’s because he’s Gary Lai, Blue Origin’s chief architect for the New Shepard launch system. Lai served as an almost-astronaut during last April’s rehearsal for crewed flight at the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas. That was a practice run during which Lai and a crewmate strapped into their seats in the crew capsule, but then climbed out and left the launch pad just before liftoff.

Three months later, Blue Origin went ahead with its first-ever crewed space mission, with billionaire founder Jeff Bezos and three others on board. Two more trips followed, and now it’s Lai’s turn for real.

“I am deeply humbled, grateful and excited by the invitation to fly on New Shepard on the NS-20 mission,” Lai wrote in a posting on LinkedIn. (NS-20 refers to the fact that this will be the 20th mission for the New Shepard reusable launch system. Sixteen of those missions were uncrewed.)

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Cosmic Space

The stage is set for NASA moon rocket’s rehearsal

SLS and Orion on launch pad
NASA's Space Launch System rocket, topped by an Orion capsule, sits on its launch pad in Florida. ((NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

For the first time in nearly 50 years, a NASA rocket capable of sending humans to the moon is sitting on its launch pad.

The overnight rollout of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, topped by an Orion capsule, evoked memories of the Saturn V rocket launches that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida between 1968 and 1972.

The SLS is being prepared for a monthlong test mission known as Artemis 1, which will send the Orion on an uncrewed flight around the moon and back. That flight, currently set for the May-June time frame, is due to be followed by a crewed round-the-moon mission in 2024, and then a mission to send astronauts to lunar surface in 2025.

The precise timing of all these missions depends on the outcome of on-the-ground tests of the multibillion-dollar rocket. Those tests are due to take place over the next couple of weeks and come to a climax next month with a dress rehearsal for launch.

The stage for the rehearsal was set when the 322-foot-tall, 3.5 million-pound rocket rolled out of Kennedy Space Center’s giant Vehicle Assembly Building on a crawler-transporter that was retooled from the space shuttle era. After a trek that took nearly 11 hours, the rocket was fixed in place at around 4:15 a.m. ET (1:15 a.m. PT) today at Launch Complex 39B, which was first used for Apollo 10’s launch in 1969.

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Pete Davidson scrubs his suborbital space ride

Pete Davidson
Pete Davidson portrayed a hapless Mars astronaut in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. (NBC / SNL via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has called off plans to put “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson on the next flight of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship. “Pete Davidson is no longer able to join the NS-20 crew on this mission,” Blue Origin said today in a tweet. The company said that liftoff from Launch Site One in West Texas has been delayed from March 24 to March 29.

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Student wins top prize for gravitational wave work

Christine Ye
Eastlake High School senior Christine Ye focused on gravitational waves in her research. (UW Bothell Photo)

Christine Ye, a senior at Eastlake High School in Sammamish, Wash., has won the top award in the nation’s oldest and most prestigious competitions for science students, thanks to her research into the mysteries of black holes and neutron stars.

“I’m totally in shock,” the 17-year-old told me after winning the $250,000 first-place award in the 2022 Regeneron Science Talent Search. “It feels amazing.”

Ye was among 40 finalists honored on March 15 in Washington, D.C., during a live-streamed ceremony that was emceed by “Saturday Night Live” cast member Melissa Villaseñor. More than $1.8 million in all was awarded to the finalists, who were evaluated on the basis of their projects’ scientific rigor and their potential to become scientific leaders.

Ye’s award-winning research is based on an analysis of readings from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, and addresses one of LIGO’s most puzzling observations.

In 2019, researchers at LIGO and at Europe’s Virgo gravitational-wave observatory detected ripples in spacetime that were caused by the collision of a black hole and a mystery object that was 2.6 times as massive as our sun. The object’s size fell into a “mass gap” between the heaviest known neutron star and the lightest known black hole.

The analysis conducted by Ye and her co-author, Northwestern University postdoctoral fellow Maya Fishbach, determined that rapidly spinning neutron stars could get as massive as the mystery object. Their study will be the subject of a presentation next month in New York at a meeting of the American Physical Society.

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Wave Motion will work on jet-gun launcher for Navy

Wave Motion team with launcher
Casey Dunn, Finn van Donkelaar and James Penna show off a demonstration launcher. (Wave Motion Photo)

Everett, Wash.-based Wave Motion Launch Corp. has been awarded $1.3 million to support its efforts to develop a barrel-less launcher technology that could eventually be used to send payloads to space.

Wave Motion was selected for project funding from the U.S. Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division via the Naval Surface Technology and Innovation Consortium. NSTIC offers federally funded research and business opportunities related to naval surface technology innovation, with a focus on emerging ventures.

The funding is due to run through the end of 2023 — and if Wave Motion’s jet-gun technology proves out, the company could be selected for follow-up awards.

Wave Motion is the brainchild of three University of Washington alumni — Finn van Donkelaar, James Penna and Casey Dunn. The two-year-old venture was one of the award winners in UW CoMotion’s I-Corps program in 2020. Van Donkelaar is Wave Motion’s CEO and holds the patent for the jet-gun system. Penna is the chief operating officer, and Dunn has served as chief financial officer.

The jet-gun concept involves firing a jet of supersonic gas to push a projectile to very high speeds. Since there’s no physical structure or barrel surrounding the projectile, Wave Motion says the system has the potential to be up to 100 times more compact than a rocket or regular cannon of equivalent power.

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Scientists plan to analyze DNA at Titanic wreck site

Titanic bow
OceanGate captured an updated view of the Titanic shipwreck’s iconic bow. (OceanGate Photo)

What’s lurking at the Titanic shipwreck site, nearly 13,000 beneath the surface of the North Atlantic? Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate aims to help scientists find out by cataloging the genomic signatures present in the deep ocean.

Researchers will gather up water samples at different depths during a series of dives planned by OceanGate’s Titan submersible this summer, and then analyze the samples to identify the DNA captured within.

The results are expected to give scientists a deeper understanding of deep-ocean biodiversity, and may also shed new light on some of the enduring mysteries surrounding the world’s best-known shipwreck.

“This is groundbreaking deep-sea research,” Steve W. Ross, a research professor affiliated with the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, said in a news release. Ross took part in OceanGate Expeditions’ 2021 Titanic survey, and will be chief scientist for this summer’s expedition.

Over the past 110 years, the sinking of the Titanic luxury liner — and the loss of more than 1,500 passengers and crew — have provided the inspiration for countless tragic tales, including an Oscar-winning movie. Over that same time period, the rusting wreck has provided an artificial reef for life at the bottom of the sea.

“This study will give us an entirely different view of this one-of-a-kind habitat while also adding substantially to shared deep-water DNA data sets,” Ross said. “Water samples taken and analyzed using advanced genomics technologies will not only help us identify the lifeforms we can directly observe from the Titan submersible, but also will give us a full picture of the lifeforms we cannot see. This includes invisible signs of both microscopic creatures and larger animals that leave traces of DNA in the water surrounding the Titanic.”

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Astra bounces back with Alaska satellite launch

Astra launch from Alaska
Astra’s LV0009 launch vehicle rises from its Alaska launch pad. (Astra Photo / Brady Kenniston)

California-based Astra sent a batch of satellites into orbit for Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc. from an Alaska launch pad today, a just a little more than a month after Astra’s launch failure in Florida.

Astra’s LV0009 launch vehicle lifted off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s Kodiak Island at 9:22 a.m. PT, and about an hour later, Astra CEO Chris Kemp reported that the mission was a success.

“Our customers are calling us and indicating that the satellites are alive, they’re talking, which means that they’ve been successfully deployed,” he said during a webcast. “The flight was nominal. We were able to precisely deliver to the targeted orbit and inclination at orbital velocity. … It’s been a long journey.”

Astra went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange last July, thanks to a blank-check merger orchestrated by Seattle-area telecom pioneer Craig McCaw. The company’s status as a publicly traded company led to some ups and downs today as investors waited for word about the mission’s success or failure — and despite notching a success, Astra’s share price ended the day slightly down, at $3.49.

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Bill Gates gives another boost to next-gen antennas

Kymeta antenna on car
Kymeta's antenna can fit on top of a vehicle to provide hybrid cellular-satellite connectivity. (Kymeta Photo)

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is doing it again: He’s the lead investor in a new $84 million funding round for Redmond, Wash.-based Kymeta Corp., the mobile connectivity startup he helped foster a decade ago.

Kymeta says the fresh infusion of equity investment will be used to accelerate the production of its flat-panel antennas and set the stage for expanding its offerings for defense customers, as well as for users of satellite broadband services that are being offered from low Earth orbit.

The funding announced today follows up on an $85 million round that was also led by Gates in August 2020, as well as a $30 million investment that was made by South Korea’s Hanwha Systems just a few months afterward. Kymeta says Hanwha is also participating in the new round. All of the equity investments announced to date add up to nearly $400 million — with Gates playing a principal role ever since the company was spun out from Intellectual Ventures in 2012.

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Microsoft says it’s made a crucial quantum leap

Researcher working in quantum lab
Postdoctoral researcher Xiaojing Zhao works in Microsoft’s Quantum Materials Lab. (Photo by John Brecher for Microsoft)

Microsoft says its researchers have found evidence of an exotic phenomenon that’s key to its plans to build general-purpose quantum computers.

The phenomenon, known as a Majorana zero mode, is expected to smooth the path for topological quantum computing — the technological approach that’s favored by Microsoft’s Azure Quantum program.

Quantum computing is a weird enough concept by itself: In contrast with the rigid one-or-zero world of classical computing, quantum computing juggles quantum bits, or qubits, that can represent ones and zeroes simultaneously until the results are read out.

Scientists say the quantum approach can solve certain types of problems — for example, network optimization or simulations of molecular interactions — far more quickly than the classical approach. Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and other cloud-based services are already using hybrid systems to bring some of the benefits of the quantum approach to applications ranging from drug development to traffic management.

At the same time, Microsoft and other companies are trying to build the hardware and software for “full-stack” quantum computing systems that can take on a far wider range of applications. Microsoft has chosen a particularly exotic technological strategy, which involves inducing quantum states on topological superconducting wires. To keep those quantum states stable, the wires would host Majorana zero modes localized at each end.

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