Area know-how: Lithuania’s promising area start-ups

Area know-how: Lithuania’s promising area start-ups

MaryLou Costa

Know-how Reporter

Reporting fromVilnius, Lithuania
Astrolight A technician works with lasers at Astrolight's labAstrolight

Astrolight is creating a laser-based communications system

I am led by a sequence of concrete corridors at Vilnius Tech 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 will discover the headquarters of Astrolight, a six-year-old Lithuanian space-tech start-up that has simply raised €2.8m ($3.3m; £2.4m) to construct what it calls an “optical knowledge freeway”.

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

With 70,000 satellites anticipated to launch within the subsequent 5 years, it is a market with numerous potential.

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

Astrolight’s area laser know-how might have defence functions as nicely, which is well timed given Russia’s present aggressive angle in direction of its neighbours.

Astrolight is already a part of Nato’s Diana venture (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), an incubator, arrange in 2023 to use civilian know-how 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 may enable ships to speak throughout radio silence.

“So we stated, ‘all proper – we all know tips on how to do it for area. It seems to be like we are able to do it additionally for terrestrial functions’,” remembers Astrolight co-founder and CEO Laurynas Maciulis, who’s primarily based in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

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

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

“Should you flip in your radio transmitter in Ukraine, you are instantly turning into a goal, as a result of it is simple to trace. So with this know-how, as a result of the data travels in a really slender laser beam, it is very troublesome to detect.”

Astrolight An Astrolight laser points towards the sky with telescopes in the backgroundAstrolight

Astrolight’s system is troublesome to detect or jam

Value about £2.5bn, Lithuania’s defence funds is small while you examine it to bigger nations just like the UK, which spends round £54bn a yr.

However if you happen to take a look at defence spending as a share of GDP, then Lithuania is spending greater than many larger nations.

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

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

“Area know-how is quickly turning into an more and more built-in component 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 professional.

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

Mr Genys offers the instance of Lithuanian life sciences agency Delta Biosciences, which is making 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.

BlackSwan Space Tomas Malinauskas with a moustache and in front of bookshelves.BlackSwan Area

Lithuania ought to put money into its home area tech says Tomas Malinauskas

Going hand in hand with Astrolight’s laser know-how 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 primarily based navigation system” permits satellites to be programmed and repositioned independently of a human primarily based 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 atmosphere, the identical know-how 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 simple, 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 a substitute of spending $300m on a US-made drone, the federal government might put money into a constellation of small satellites.

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

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

Space Hub LT Blonde haired Eglė Elena Šataitė in a pin-striped jacketArea Hub LT

Eglė Elena Šataitė leads a authorities company supporting area tech

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

“Our authorities is, after all, conscious of the fact of the place we reside, and that we’ve got to take a position extra in safety and defence – and we’ve got to confess that area applied sciences are those which can be enabling defence applied sciences,” says Ms Šataitė.

The nation’s Minister for Financial system and Innovation, Lukas Savickas, says he understands Mr Malinauskas’ concern and is authorities spending on creating area tech.

“Area know-how is without doubt one of the highest added-value creating sectors, as it’s identified for its horizontality; many space-based options go according to 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 need to show to others that we belong on the worldwide stage,” says Dominykas Milasius, co-founder of Delta Biosciences.

“And every little thing we do can also be geopolitical… we’ve got to construct up crucial worth choices, sciences and different crucial applied sciences, to make our allies perceive that it is most likely good to guard Lithuania.”

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