We report an airborne gravity survey with an absolute gravimeter based on atom interferometry and two relative gravimeters: a classical LaCoste&Romberg (L&R) and a novel iMAR strapdown Inertial Measurement Unit. We estimated measurement errors for the quantum gravimeter ranging from 0.6 to 1.3 mGal depending on the flight conditions and the filtering used. Similar measurement errors are obtained with iMAR strapdown gravimeter, but the long‐term stability is five times worse. The traditional L&R platform gravimeter shows larger measurement errors (3–4 mGal). Airborne measurements have been compared to marine, land, and altimetry‐derived gravity data. We obtain a good agreement for the quantum gravimeter with standard deviations and means on differences below or equal to 2 mGal. This study confirms the potential of quantum technology for absolute airborne gravimetry, which is particularly interesting for mapping shallow water or mountainous areas and for linking ground and satellite measurements with homogeneous absolute referencing.

Recent developments in quantum technology have resulted in a new generation of sensors for measuring inertial quantities, such as acceleration and rotation. These sensors can exhibit unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy when operated in space, where the free-fall interrogation time can be extended at will and where the environment noise is minimal. European laboratories have played a leading role in this field by developing concepts and tools to operate these quantum sensors in relevant environment, such as parabolic flights, free-fall towers, or sounding rockets. With the recent achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation on the International Space Station, the challenge is now to reach a technology readiness level sufficiently high at both component and system levels to provide “off the shelf” payload for future generations of space missions in geodesy or fundamental physics. In this roadmap, we provide an extensive review on the status of all common parts, needs, and subsystems for the application of atom-based interferometers in space, in order to push for the development of generic technology components.

Accurate and stable measurement of inertial quantities is essential in geophysics, geodesy, fundamental physics, and inertial navigation. Here, we present an architecture for a compact cold-atom accelerometer-gyroscope based on a magnetically launched atom interferometer. Characterizing the launching technique, we demonstrate 700–parts per million gyroscope scale factor stability over 1 day, while acceleration and rotation rate bias stabilities of 7 × 10 ⁻⁷ meters per second squared and 4 × 10 ⁻⁷ radians per second are reached after 2 days of integration of the cold-atom sensor. Hybridizing it with a classical accelerometer and gyroscope, we correct their drift and bias to achieve respective 100-fold and 3-fold increase on the stability of the hybridized sensor compared to the classical ones. Compared to a state-of-the-art atomic gyroscope, the simplicity and scalability of our launching technique make this architecture easily extendable to a compact full six-axis inertial measurement unit, providing a pathway toward autonomous positioning and orientation using cold-atom sensors.

Long-term observation of Earth’s temporal gravity field with enhanced temporal and spatial resolution is a major objective for future satellite gravity missions. Improving the performance of the accelerometers present in such missions is one of the main paths to explore. In this context, we propose to study an original concept of a hybrid accelerometer associating a state-of-the-art electrostatic accelerometer (EA) and a promising quantum sensor based on cold atom interferometry. To assess the performance potential of such an instrument, numerical simulations were performed to determine its impact in terms of gravity field retrieval. Taking advantage of the long-term stability of the cold atom interferometer (CAI), it is shown that the reduced drift of the hybrid sensor could lead to improved gravity field retrieval. Nevertheless, this gain vanishes once temporal variations of the gravity field and related aliasing effects are taken into account. Improved de-aliasing models or some specific satellite constellations are then required to maximize the impact of the accelerometer performance gain. To evaluate the achievable acceleration performance in-orbit, a numerical simulator of the hybrid accelerometer was developed and preliminary results are given. The instrument simulator was in part validated by reproducing the performance achieved with a hybrid lab prototype operating on the ground. The problem of satellite rotation impact on the CAI was also investigated both with instrument performance simulations and experimental demonstrations. It is shown that the proposed configuration, where the EA’s proof-mass acts as the reference mirror for the CAI, seems a promising approach to allow the mitigation of satellite rotation. To evaluate the feasibility of such an instrument for space applications, a preliminary design is elaborated along with a preliminary error, mass, volume, and electrical power consumption budget.

We present an innovative multi-line fiber laser system for both cesium and rubidium manipulation. The architecture is based on frequency conversion of two lasers at 1560 nm and 1878 nm. By taking advantage of existing high performance fibered components at these wavelengths, we have demonstrated multi-line operation of an all fiber laser system delivering 350 mW at 780 nm for rubidium and 210 mW at 852 nm for cesium. This result highlights the promising nature of such laser system especially for Cs manipulation for which no fiber laser system has been reported. It offers new perspectives for the development of atomic instruments dedicated to onboard applications and opens the way to a new generation of atom interferometers involving three atomic species (⁸⁵Rb, ⁸⁷Rb and ¹³³Cs) for which we propose an original laser architecture.