Fleet Space partners with quantum companies for mineral exploration

Australian space exploration company Fleet Space has announced partnerships with three quantum technology companies to develop next-generation sensors for mineral exploration.

The company said on Wednesday it had partnered with mDetect, Nomad Atomics, and DeteQt to expand technology for the global mining industry by developing quantum sensors for AI-powered mineral exploration.

The partnerships will advance the acquisition and processing speed of geophysical datasets and build a path for muon tomography to enhance geological predictions of AI systems.

Fleet Space said the collaborations were part of expanding its vertically integrated ExoSphere platform, which it is developing with frontier technology start-ups and academic institutions including Stanford’s Mineral-X and MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative.

Using ExoSphere, Rio Tinto, Barrick, BHP and Gold Fields have accelerated exploration and unlocked geological insights at projects worldwide, the company said.

Chief Executive and Co-Founder Flavia Tata Nardini said the global mining industry needed to build deep technologies and infrastructure that integrated breakthrough sensing modalities into a unified system.

“With our ExoSphere platform, Fleet Space has created the next-generation of satellite-connected geophysical methods while also investing in the development of frontier technologies like quantum gravimetry and muon tomography,” Tata Nardini said.

mDetect specialises in muon tomography, a passive imaging technique that uses naturally occurring particles from space to create 3D density maps of the subsurface.

Nomad Atomics is developing high-precision quantum gravimeters and accelerometers that leverage atomic physics to deliver stable and sensitive measurements.

DeteQt is developing patented “diamond-on-chip” quantum magnetometers that detect vector magnetic fields with precision and can be manufactured and deployed at scale.

Chief Scientist Dr Gerrit Olivier said the partnerships brought laboratory-grade precision into hand-held packages.

The partnerships follow Fleet Space’s recent acquisition of HiSeis, completion of a $100 million Series D funding round, and launch of next-generation Centauri satellites.

Picture: credit Fleet Space