Space technology: Lithuania’s promising space start-ups

I am led by means of a sequence of concrete corridors at Vilnius College, Lithuania; the murals give a Soviet-era vibe, and it appears an unlikely location for a high-tech lab engaged on a laser communication system.

However that is the place you may discover the headquarters of Astrolight, a six-year-old Lithuanian space-tech start-up that has simply raised €2.8m ($2.3m; £2.4m) to construct what it calls an “optical information freeway”.

You can consider the tech as invisible web cables, designed to hyperlink up satellites with Earth.

With 70,000 satellites expected to launch within the subsequent 5 years, it is a market with a variety of potential.

The corporate hopes to be a part of a shift from conventional radio frequency-based communication, to sooner, safer and higher-bandwidth laser expertise.

Astrolight’s house laser expertise might have defence functions as nicely, which is well timed given Russia’s current aggressive attitude in the direction of its neighbours.

Astrolight is already a part of Nato’s Diana undertaking (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), an incubator, arrange in 2023 to use civilian expertise to defence challenges.

In Astrolight’s case, Nato is eager to leverage its quick, hack-proof laser communications to transmit essential intelligence in defence operations – one thing the Lithuanian Navy is already doing.

It approached Astrolight three years in the past in search of a laser that might permit ships to speak throughout radio silence.

“So we mentioned, ‘all proper – we all know how one can do it for house. It appears like we are able to do it additionally for terrestrial functions’,” recollects Astrolight co-founder and CEO Laurynas Maciulis, who’s based mostly in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

For the army his firm’s tech is engaging, because the laser system is troublesome to intercept or jam.

​​It is also about “low detectability”, Mr Maciulis provides:

“When you flip in your radio transmitter in Ukraine, you are instantly changing into a goal, as a result of it is easy to trace. So with this expertise, as a result of the knowledge travels in a really slim laser beam, it’s extremely troublesome to detect.”

Value about £2.5bn, Lithuania’s defence funds is small whenever you evaluate it to bigger international locations just like the UK, which spends round £54bn a 12 months.

However when you have a look at defence spending as a proportion of GDP, then Lithuania is spending greater than many greater international locations.

Round 3% of its GDP is spent on defence, and that is set to rise to five.5%. By comparability, UK defence spending is price 2.5% of GDP.

Recognised for its energy in area of interest applied sciences like Astrolight’s lasers, 30% of Lithuania’s house tasks have obtained EU funding, in contrast with the EU nationwide common of 17%.

“Area expertise is quickly changing into an more and more built-in factor of Lithuania’s broader defence and resilience technique,” says Make investments Lithuania’s Šarūnas Genys, who’s the physique’s head of producing sector, and defence sector skilled.

Area tech can typically have civilian and army makes use of.

Mr Genys offers the instance of Lithuanian life sciences agency Delta Biosciences, which is getting ready a mission to the Worldwide Area Station to check radiation-resistant medical compounds.

“Whereas developed for spaceflight, these improvements might additionally help particular operations forces working in high-radiation environments,” he says.

He provides that Vilnius-based Kongsberg NanoAvionics has secured a significant contract to fabricate lots of of satellites.

“Whereas primarily business, such infrastructure has inherent dual-use potential supporting encrypted communications and real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance throughout NATO’s jap flank,” says Mr Genys.

Going hand in hand with Astrolight’s laser expertise is the autonomous satellite tv for pc navigation system fellow Lithuanian space-tech start-up Blackswan Area has developed.

Blackswan Area’s “imaginative and prescient based mostly navigation system” permits satellites to be programmed and repositioned independently of a human based mostly at a floor management centre who, its founders say, will not be capable of sustain with the sheer quantity of satellites launching within the coming years.

In a defence setting, the identical expertise can be utilized to remotely destroy an enemy satellite tv for pc, in addition to to coach troopers by creating battle simulations.

However the gross sales pitch to the Lithuanian army hasn’t essentially been easy, acknowledges Tomas Malinauskas, Blackswan Area’s chief business officer.

He is additionally involved that authorities funding for the sector is not matching the extent of innovation popping out of it.

He factors out that as an alternative of spending $300m on a US-made drone, the federal government might spend money on a constellation of small satellites.

“Construct your personal functionality for communication and intelligence gathering of enemy international locations, fairly than a drone that’s going to be shot down within the first two hours of a battle,” argues Mr Malinauskas, additionally based mostly in Vilnius.

“It will be an enormous increase for our small house group, however as nicely, it will be a long-term, sustainable value-add for the way forward for the Lithuanian army.”

Eglė Elena Šataitė is the pinnacle of Area Hub LT, a Vilnius-based company supporting house corporations as a part of Lithuania’s government-funded Innovation Company.

“Our authorities is, after all, conscious of the fact of the place we dwell, and that we now have to speculate extra in safety and defence – and we now have to confess that house applied sciences are those which might be enabling defence applied sciences,” says Ms Šataitė.

The nation’s Minister for Economic system and Innovation, Lukas Savickas, says he understands Mr Malinauskas’ concern and is taking a look at authorities spending on creating house tech.

“Area expertise is likely one of the highest added-value creating sectors, as it’s identified for its horizontality; many space-based options go in step with biotech, AI, new supplies, optics, ICT and different fields of innovation,” says Mr Savickas.

No matter occurs with authorities funding, the Lithuanian urge for food for innovation stays sturdy.

“We all the time should show to others that we belong on the worldwide stage,” says Dominykas Milasius, co-founder of Delta Biosciences.

“And the whole lot we do can also be geopolitical… we now have to construct up important worth choices, sciences and different important applied sciences, to make our allies perceive that it is most likely good to guard Lithuania.”