Alba Orbital & UpKoi Sign Launch Agreement To Begin testing Quantum Hardware In Space
Date – Alba Orbital, the world’s leading PocketQube satellite launch provider, is proud to announce a new partnership with Upkoi, a privately funded company working to develop a platform for quantum computing in space.
Upkoi’s mission serves as a proof-of-concept flight, designed to test and characterize essential supporting systems that will underpin future iterations of their orbital computing platform. The satellite will carry an experimental quantum hardware payload alongside custom control electronics and software, focused on characterizing how the system behaves in the space environment.
The mission will launch to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as part of Alba Orbital’s upcoming Q1 2026 launch, deployed via Alba’s AlbaPod system, subject to regulatory approval.
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR QUANTUM COMPUTATION IN SPACE
Developing quantum systems for orbit represents one of the most ambitious frontiers in space technology today. To manage this complexity, Upkoi is deploying a specialized software stack designed to actively manage the hardware.
“We have spent ten years building software to help people,” said Rob Venables, Founder of Upkoi. “To efficiently tackle the next generation of problems, we believe we will need computers that are more capable, efficient, and trustworthy beyond what exists today. This mission is a research project to help us understand how to build those tools.”
As part of this research, the mission includes a secondary objective to test on-orbit reinforcement learning in a tightly constrained, nonsafetycritical setting. Upkoi aims to determine whether onboard models can assist in tuning the payload’s sensitive control systems.
ITERATING TOWARD A SCALABLE FUTURE
The 1P PocketQube form factor closely matches the size requirements for Upkoi’s current isolated core architecture. This picosatellite offers a cost-effective platform for rapid iteration, allowing Upkoi to refine the hardware stack that could eventually support demanding AI and optimization workloads.
If early tests are successful, future missions may explore more complex multi-qubit systems and investigate how small satellites could be networked to work together as a larger distributed computing resource. These concepts remain exploratory and will depend on technical, regulatory, and operational outcomes.
AbOUT ALBA ORBITAL
Alba Orbital continues to expand access to orbit for a growing range of NewSpace innovators, from academic teams to frontier technology startups.
To date, Alba Orbital has delivered 53 pico-satellites into orbit with launch partners such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, and has worked with over 30 customers worldwide.
Contact: contact@albaorbital.com
ABOUT UPKOI
Upkoi is a privately funded technology company founded in 2013 and headquartered in Florida. The company’s mission is to responsibly expand human capabilities through a thoughtful use of technology.
For the past decade, Upkoi has focused on building software and machine learning systems in partnership with non-profit organizations, including helping to reduce waste and improving access for vulnerable communities.
Upkoi’s expansion into orbital hardware is driven by a clear thesis: some of the most impactful applications of computing to help people - including the possible future support of safe and responsible artificial general intelligence (AGI) - may require novel approaches to hardware architecture and compute at scale. Upkoi is exploring whether space based quantum architectures could become one useful path toward that scale and efficiency.
Contact: rob@upkoi.com