10/31/2025 Jeni Bushman
Illinois Grainger physicists are recruiting participants worldwide to play their online video game, whose results will shed light on quantum mechanics.
Written by Jeni Bushman
The field of quantum information science and technology may soon revolutionize how scientists solve the world’s most difficult computational problems and enable provably secure communication tasks. Central to these pursuits are sources of entanglement, a quantum phenomenon that describes the relationships that can exist between quantum entities like photons.
In an effort to involve members of the public in this pursuit, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are inviting participants around the world to join them on or before Tuesday, Nov. 4 for a journey through virtual space. Quantum Satellite, a web-based video game inspired by the SEAQUE NASA mission, allows users to pilot a high-speed starship through cosmic challenges while making choices that influence real-world quantum research.
Launched on a SpaceX rocket on Nov. 4, 2024, the Space Entanglement and Annealing QUantum Experiment (SEAQUE) is the first US-led mission of this type in space. Led by Professor Paul Kwiat, the John Bardeen Chair in Physics and Electrical Engineering, the project’s goal is to validate new and improved methods for creating entanglement and mitigating the damaging effects of space radiation, eventually leading to space-based quantum links connecting distant nodes on the planet surface.
To celebrate the first anniversary of the launch, Kwiat will join the Chicago Quantum Summit on Nov. 3 to release Quantum Satellite. The game was created as a scientific outreach initiative to involve the public in the process of verifying quantum entanglement.
“Usually, we have a random number generator supplying the settings used to measure the SEAQUE entangled photons, but this time we want the settings to be determined by the public,” Kwiat said. “This will be the first time that settings from people around the world are used to perform measurements on entangled photons in a different frame of reference — the rapidly moving frame of the International Space Station.”
Quantum Satellite will go live on Nov. 4 in all time zones. In less than 5 minutes, users can generate multiple measurement settings, and Illinois Grainger researchers will maintain a ledger of the highest scores.
Kwiat’s lab will use data collected at the Chicago Quantum Summit on Nov. 3 and data gathered from around the world on Nov. 4 to perform a series of experiments that can characterize and verify quantum entanglement generated on SEAQUE.
“We’d like to get as many people playing as possible,” Kwiat said. “Our goal is 10,000 participants. It’s suitable for everyone, and we think it would be especially great for junior high and high school students, to introduce them to quantum technologies that are orbiting above them.”
Other SEAQUE contributors at the University of Illinois include Michael Lembeck, Kelsey Ortiz, Liam Ramsey and Spencer Johnson (now at JPL). Support for SEAQUE has been provided by from NASA JPL and Boeing. Additional contributions have been made by Thomas Jennewein from Simon Frazer University and Alex Ling from the National University of Singapore. Additional experimental contributions in this tri-national project have been made by Thomas Jennewein from Simon Frazer University in Canada and Alex Ling from the National University of Singapore. The game was developed in collaboration with The stu/dio, a student-driven effort to manage game development projects in support of education and research on the University of Illinois campus.