  Recently, the European Commission supported by many European countries has
announced large investments towards the commercialization of quantum technology
(QT) to address and mitigate some of the biggest challenges facing today's
digital era - e.g. secure communication and computing power. For more than two
decades the QT community has been working on the development of QTs, which
promise landmark breakthroughs leading to commercialization in various areas.
The ambitious goals of the QT community and expectations of EU authorities
cannot be met solely by individual initiatives of single countries, and
therefore, require a combined European effort of large and unprecedented
dimensions comparable only to the Galileo or Copernicus programs. Strong
international competition calls for a coordinated European effort towards the
development of QT in and for space, including research and development of
technology in the areas of communication and sensing. Here, we aim at
summarizing the state of the art in the development of quantum technologies
which have an impact in the field of space applications. Our goal is to outline
a complete framework for the design, development, implementation, and
exploitation of quantum technology in space.
