China has announced the world's first quantum experiment satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on August 16.

China has announced the world's first quantum experiment satellite, the "Micius", carried aloft on a Long March-2D rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in the Gobi Desert, at 1:40 am on August 16.

The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite will allow for the first quantum communications from outer space to the ground and is a milestone in China's space research.

It is one of the first satellites that is a part of a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) priority research project and is designed to establish "hack-proof" quantum communications by transmitting uncrackable keys from the space to the ground, and to provide insights into the strangest phenomenon in quantum physics – the quantum entanglement.

QUESS has a service life of two years and will hopefully help make China a world leader in quantum communications technology and greatly improve national information security and technology. It will also facilitate Chinese scientists making breakthroughs in quantum science and play a role in developing Chinese space science satellites.