The Marietta Blau ground station will be built in 2025 on the Hafelekar at an altitude of 2265 m and is connected to the quantum optics laboratories of the University of Innsbruck via fiber optics.
Aiming high with quantum research
The quantum optical ground station on the Hafelekar
At 2265 m above sea level and in the immediate vicinity of the University of Innsbruck with its world-leading research focus on physics, the Hafelekar is the ideal location for the Marietta Blau ground station. The clear sky high above the cloudy Inn Valley offers ideal conditions for communication with space.
Innsbruck's geographical location with high mountains in close proximity to top research laboratories makes the capital of Tyrol an ideal location for research into space-based quantum communication.
C: schafferer architects
Name giver
Marietta Blau
Marietta Blau (1894-1970) was an Austrian physicist and pioneer of nuclear physics. Together with her colleague Hertha Wambacher, she discovered so-called "fragmentation stars" in 1937 - star-shaped particle trails created by nuclear reactions of cosmic radiation.
She made this discovery by analyzing photographic plates that were exposed in the high-altitude radiation station on the Hafelekar above Innsbruck. The measuring station was set up in 1931 on the initiative of Victor Franz Hess (Victor Franz Hess Measuring Station), who later won the Nobel Prize for Physics. Today it is recognized as a "Historic Site" by the European Physical Society.
Source: University of Innsbruck
