House expertise: Lithuania’s promising area start-ups

I am led via a collection 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 will 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 possibly can 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 lots of potential.

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

Astrolight’s area laser expertise may have defence functions as properly, which is well timed given Russia’s present aggressive perspective in direction of its neighbours.

Astrolight is already a part of Nato’s Diana mission (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 will enable ships to speak throughout radio silence.

“So we stated, ‘all proper – we all know learn how to do it for area. It seems to be like we will 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 engaging, because the laser system is troublesome to intercept or jam.

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

“In the event 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 expertise, as a result of the data travels in a really slim laser beam, it’s extremely troublesome to detect.”

Price about £2.5bn, Lithuania’s defence finances is small once you examine it to bigger international locations just like the UK, which spends round £54bn a 12 months.

However in the event you take a look at defence spending as a proportion of GDP, then Lithuania is spending greater than many larger 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 area tasks have acquired EU funding, in contrast with the EU nationwide common of 17%.

“House expertise is quickly turning 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.

House 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 House Station to check radiation-resistant medical compounds.

“Whereas developed for spaceflight, these improvements may additionally assist 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 japanese 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 House has developed.

Blackswan House’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 have the ability to sustain with the sheer quantity of satellites launching within the coming years.

In a defence surroundings, 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 House’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 may put money into a constellation of small satellites.

“Construct your individual functionality for communication and intelligence gathering of enemy international locations, reasonably 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 could be an enormous enhance for our small area group, however as properly, it will be a long-term, sustainable value-add for the way forward for the Lithuanian army.”

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

“Our authorities is, in fact, conscious of the fact of the place we dwell, and that we’ve to take a position extra in safety and defence – and we’ve to confess that area applied sciences are those which are 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 growing area tech.

“House expertise is likely one of the highest added-value creating sectors, as it’s recognized 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 robust.

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

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