Geneva, Switzerland, June 03 2025 -- WISeKey International Holding Ltd (“WISeKey”), a leading global cybersecurity, blockchain, and IoT company, via its subsidiaries, WISeSat.Space SA (“WISeSat”) and SEALSQ Corp ("SEALSQ" or "Company"), a company that focuses on developing and selling Semiconductors, PKI, and Post-Quantum technology hardware and software products, and today announced the upcoming launch of WISeSat 3.0, scheduled for second week of June 2025, marking the first satellite to embed SEALSQ’s Quantum RootKey. This mission initiates a new era of quantum-safe space communications, establishing a space-based Proof-of-Concept for Post-Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) designed to secure global data infrastructure against emerging quantum threats.

This next-generation satellite platform will support cryptographic key generation and management both in orbit and at mission control. It ensures encryption, authentication, and validation of software and data using NIST-standardized post-quantum algorithms, including CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, selected in August 2024.

At the heart of WISeSat 3.0 lies the Quantum RootKey, a hardware-based root-of-trust module developed by SEALSQ to resist both classical and quantum cyberattacks. By isolating cryptographic operations within a tamper-resistant environment directly on the satellite, RootKey protects key storage, signing, and encryption processes. It enables end-to-end secure communications and digital identity services, even under the computing power of future quantum machines.

The satellite will deliver several key capabilities: secure command authentication to prevent unauthorized satellite control, encryption of sensitive data such as Earth observation, defense telemetry, and scientific research, and post-quantum key distribution for critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, transportation, and smart cities. It also allows for the secure onboarding of billions of IoT devices by providing quantum-resistant digital identities from space, even in remote or disconnected regions.

WISeSat has gradually embedded technologies from WISeKey, SEALSQ, and Hedera into its satellite operations, allowing these next-generation satellites to become a benchmark for post-quantum security from space. This advanced integration also supports the use of trusted digital tokens such as SEALCOIN, opening new frontiers in secure space-to-ground transactions and tokenized satellite-based services.

WISeSat.Space has also established key infrastructure, including a satellite antenna in La Línea, Spain, with plans to install another in Switzerland. These installations will enhance the monitoring and management of the growing satellite constellation, ensuring optimal performance and secure operations. By 2027, WISeSat.Space aims to establish a large constellation of satellites, incorporating WISeKey cryptographic keys and PQC semiconductor technology from SEALSQ, to ensure robust, quantum-resistant communication capabilities from space.

As quantum computing advances, the risk of key extraction, spoofing, and eavesdropping on satellite networks becomes increasingly urgent. SEALSQ’s Post-Quantum RootKey architecture provides robust, real-time defenses, including secure key isolation, signature validation, and quantum-resilient encryption, ensuring any attempt to intercept or tamper with quantum key exchanges is immediately detectable.

In parallel, WISeSat’s multi-layered quantum-secure platform is designed to leverage the unique properties of space, including microgravity, to enable scientific breakthroughs impossible on Earth. This includes quantum sensing for unspoofable positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), secure deep-space exploration, and in-orbit manufacturing of quantum components in pristine, interference-free environments.

These advancements position WISeSat 3.0 to play a strategic role in enabling a sovereign, resilient, and secure digital infrastructure at a time of rising geopolitical and cybersecurity tensions. The mission underscores Europe and its allies’ commitment to space sovereignty and secure digital transformation.

Together, WISeSat and SEALSQ are setting the foundation for a new generation of cyber-resilient, quantum-ready space systems, redefining global digital trust from orbit.