Though the US and China still dominate deadlines with billion-dollar launch programs, a quieter transformation is happening as smaller nations seek to build up the necessary infrastructure behind the space economy, and European underdogs are looking to get in on the action.
Among the most ambitious may be Lithuania, a country with fewer than three million citizens, that’s quickly establishing itself as a serious player in satellite manufacturing, aerospace engineering and commercial space technology.
But the country’s rise in the sector might not be all that surprising, after all. Lithuania has been building itself a reputation as a major tech hub for years, with globally recognized companies like Nord Security, Hostinger and Pixelmator – a startup acquired by Apple – as well as the global phenomenon that is Vinted.
LEO satellites are creating major opportunities for smaller startups
While we’re already familiar with large, expensive satellites, recent years have seen a shift in focus to smaller constellations of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, like Amazon’s aptly named Leo and SpaceX’s Starlink.
Bigger networks of more satellites promise faster communications for the likes of broadband and cellular, but also more frequent Earth observation coverage for climate modelling and mapping compared with previous generations.
But it also means that the barrier to entry has been lowered for the space economy, with new entrants like Lithuania now able to get in on the action of cheaper, more accessible LEO satellites.
The country has already been building startup-friendly policies to support its position as a major European tech hub, and it’s now continuing to build on relationships with the likes of the European and UK Space Agencies and other NATO-backed programs.
Kongsberg NanoAvionics has emerged as a big name in this sector, having won a contract to build 280 satellites for Meridian Space’s broadband constellation.
But to get a sense of how small satellite constellations are changing the economics of space, and how Lithuania and other smaller countries could be positioned to capitalize on this major shift, I spoke with NanoAvionics US Business Development Manager Andrew Swain and Lithuania’s Minister of Economy and Innovation Edvinas Grikšas.
Andrew Swain, Business Development Manager, Kongsberg NanoAvionics US LLC
- “What are the specific advantages constellations have over a few bigger satellites?”
The shift toward small satellites represents a strategic pivot from high-cost, bespoke spacecraft to modular, mass-produced ones. For commercial operators, this drastically lowers capital expenditure and accelerates time-to-market. For national governments, it enables sovereign, resilient space infrastructure at a fraction of the cost and timeline of traditional approaches.
To make it concrete: a large imaging satellite in geostationary orbit sits 36,000 kilometers above Earth and continuously watches a fixed region, but from that distance, resolution is limited, and signal latency is significant. A small satellite constellation in low Earth orbit, by contrast, flies at around 500 kilometers, delivering much sharper imagery, but each satellite only passes over a given point for a few minutes at a time. The constellation model solves that by having enough satellites in the right orbital planes to ensure frequent revisits, combining the resolution advantage of LEO with something approaching the persistence of GEO.
Compare that to a few large satellites in LEO. You'd get excellent resolution, but with only a handful of assets, a given location might be imaged only once or twice a day, and losing even one satellite would meaningfully degrade your capability. A constellation of smaller satellites gives you comparable or better coverage, far greater resilience, and the ability to replace or upgrade individual units without taking the whole system offline.
Then there's resilience more broadly. By moving away from single-point-of-failure assets, you get strength in numbers. The network stays operational even if individual units fail. And you can replenish and upgrade incrementally, rather than waiting a decade for a next-generation replacement.
That last point matters more than people realize. The economics of small satellites make rapid technological refresh genuinely feasible, so our partners aren't stuck with decade-old technology. They're constantly upgrading their orbital capabilities and maintaining a real competitive edge.
- Can you explain the concept of a satellite bus? Is there an analogous concept in another domain?
A satellite bus is essentially the infrastructure of a spacecraft, everything that isn't the mission payload. So the structure, power systems, onboard computer, attitude control, propulsion, and communications with the ground or other satellites. That's the bus. The payload is what the satellite is actually there to do: take images, collect radar data, relay communications, whatever the mission requires.
The analogy I find most useful is a smartphone. The phone itself, the processor, battery, screen, and connectivity are the bus. The apps are the payload. You don't redesign the phone from scratch every time you want to run a new application. The platform is standardized and reliable, and it enables an enormous variety of missions on top of it. The only difference in this analogy is that the smartphone payloads are generally software, and satellite payloads are generally hardware.
We have developed a range of flight-proven, modular satellite buses, from 10-kilogram CubeSats to 500-kilogram-class smallsats, that customers can integrate their payloads onto. Because our buses are standardized and have a strong flight heritage, with over 60 satellites launched to orbit to date, our customers get reliability without reinventing the wheel. And because we vertically integrate up to 80% of the bus in-house, we have control over quality assurance and performance.
It's one of the reasons our mission success rate is where it is.
- How do you plan to stay competitive against other players?
By continuing to listen to the market and our customers, and being very deliberate about where we invest and what we stand for.
Our position in the market is built on something that's genuinely hard to replicate: a combination of strong flight heritage and reliability, deep vertical integration, and a fine balance between standardization and customer flexibility.
We've also built deep technical expertise across the full breadth of small satellite applications, from optical and thermal Earth observation to synthetic aperture radar, signals intelligence, and communications. It means we're not learning on the job when a customer comes to us with their mission. We've seen it, we've flown it, and we know where the hard problems are.
But we're not standing still either. We’re heavily investing in R&D to offer higher performance, reliability, and in-orbit availability. Also, the investments we're making in serial production and scalability, such as the 280-satellite program we're delivering for Meridian Space’s broadband satellite constellation, are building the kind of production capability that will define who can compete at scale in this industry over the next decade.
We're also continuing to bridge the gap between legacy space and NewSpace. This is a philosophy we've held from early on: you can be agile and cost-effective without cutting corners on quality, but you have to be very deliberate about it. We built that quality assurance discipline early through our work with defence primes, while staying commercially focused, and it's become part of our DNA. And as the market has matured, we've found that commercial constellation customers expect the same high standards.
That kind of quality foundation isn't built overnight. For example, radiation qualification is a lengthy, expensive process with limited testing slots globally, and flight heritage can take years to accumulate. In space, there are no shortcuts to trust.
Edvinas Grikšas, Minister of Economy and Innovation
- Lithuania punches well above its weight when it comes to tech. You are home to Nordsec and to Vinted, to mention two of the most recognized names. Why do you think that's the case?
Lithuania is a small, highly integrated, agile ecosystem where the distance between a bold idea and a global scale-up is incredibly short. Our success with becoming and already being unicorns like Nord Security and Vinted isn't an accident – it’s the result of a 15-year bet on digital infrastructure and talent. We have the highest ICT literacy and infrastructure in the region, a regulatory environment that treats startups as partners rather than subjects, and an unstoppable “hunger” for global growth.
- Has Lithuania extended or built similar partnerships in Europe with existing space nations (e.g. UK and France)? Do you have plans to collaborate with others (e.g. India or China)?
Lithuania’s space sector is now targeting a 1% contribution to national GDP by 2027, fueled by a 170% growth in high-tech (lasers, ICT, satellite manufacturing and components) sectors over the last three years. This momentum is anchored by industry leader Kongsberg NanoAvionics, which has recently secured a historic €122.5 million contract (approx. $136 million) to deliver the first 280 satellites for SpinLaunch’s Meridian Space constellation. Based on this contract, the company plans to build a new satellite manufacturing facility in Vilnius and, by 2030, intends to hire approximately 100 additional employees, the majority of whom will be engineers.
Space economy is a team sport, and Lithuania is trying to be a good teammate. Our space ecosystem now boasts over 40 space-related companies and a dedicated ESA Business Incubation Centre. We are an associated member of the European Space Agency and have bilateral ties with France’s CNES and the UK Space Agency. We are also active in NATO’s DIANA accelerator, focusing on the intersection of space and defense.
Regarding global expansion, India, with its rapid advancements in cost-effective launches, looks interesting and aligns perfectly with our specialized satellite components. As for China, our focus remains firmly on our strategic transatlantic and European partnerships, ensuring that our space technology develops within a framework of shared democratic values and secure, resilient supply chains.
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