Earlier this year, Astrolight – one of DIANA’s Phase 2 innovators for 2024/25 – celebrated one of its major achievements to date with the successful testing of their solution, ship-to-ship laser communication terminal POLARIS.
In modern naval operations, radio signals can be jammed or intercepted – so they often need to be silenced to avoid being detected. As a secure optical communication tool that doesn’t rely on traditional radio waves, Astrolight’s POLARIS can solve this problem.
In fact, the Astrolight team, based in Lithuania, hope POLARIS could eventually replace outdated signalling methods that have been used the last 100 years.
“The test we conducted this summer in the Baltic Sea demonstrated the success of POLARIS. We installed two POLARIS terminals on different ships, which sailed through a relatively rough Baltic Sea that day, with some rain as well, and were still able to establish and maintain a communication link between the ships. We worked with the Lithuanian Navy on this test, and they were very satisfied with the results,” explained Astrolight CEO Laurynas Maciulis.
“This success was partly thanks to our experience within the DIANA programme, which helped us access end-user feedback to refine and upgrade our technology,” he added.
The team recently tested their POLARIS terminals for a second time at REPMUS 2025, NATO’s largest naval exercise, taking place in Portugal. During the exercise, the team successfully installed two POLARIS laser communication terminals on two vessels, achieving a radio-silent, unjammable and undetectable communication link between the ships.
“We are very grateful to the DIANA team for supporting us in accessing this unique opportunity, which is a very relevant test environment for POLARIS,” said Maciulis.
From naval operations to satellites in space
While their POLARIS solution focuses on naval operations, Astrolight is also focusing their efforts on satellite communication in space and on Earth.
“Most of our effort is actually devoted to developing a secure space communication solution for satellites based on lasers, and we are working on both the space and terrestrial aspects for this,” said Maciulis.
“For use in space, we have created a very low-size and low-weight but powerful terminal that we call ATLAS. This is essentially a laser transceiver that you put on a satellite and that allows you to transmit at very high speeds between different satellites in space, or from space to ground.”
Astrolight has already produced and delivered a number of ATLAS terminals, which have been integrated into customers’ satellites and are currently undergoing acceptance testing. Once testing is completed, the terminals will be launched in February 2026 to demonstrate the success of ATLAS in space.
“Regarding terrestrial applications, we've actually shipped our next generation optical ground station system to a customer in Greece and we are looking forward to the commissioning of the system this autumn. This system will be used to establish a link with ATLAS, which we hope will fly in orbit next year.”
The team are also working on applying their solution for secure communication in the Arctic environment – with plans to build optical communication capabilities in this harsh cold region for both satellites and ships.
A spin-off from Lithuania revolutionising advanced communication technology
Since being founded as a spinoff at the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) in Lithuania in 2019, Astrolight has come far – with 26 employees to date and a newly-established subsidiary in Denmark.
“The fact that Lithuania is one of the top three countries leading the way when it comes to the development and know-how of ultra-short pulse lasers is not a very well-known fact. We have a huge amount of talent and knowledge in this ecosystem at the national level - in terms of optics, photonics, electronics manufacturing, and so on,” said Maciulis.
Being able to leverage that talent and ecosystem in Lithuania was the first step for Astrolight. Joining the DIANA programme then allowed them to gather end-user feedback and perspectives to refine their technologies. However, a dual-use approach had always been central to their vision:
“We were always dual-use by nature. Like the European Commissioner for Defence and Space said, space is defence and defence is space. Today, one cannot imagine defence capabilities without having space assets and space solutions – with surveillance, reconnaissance, and communications playing a critical role in the battlefield. The solutions that Astrolight provides are one of these essential technologies, as they enable reliable communication.”
Driving innovation through collaboration
This type of innovation is only possible through close collaboration between cutting-edge innovative companies, government and industry, as Maciulis also highlighted:
“Our collaboration with the Lithuanian Navy is a great example of how industry and government can collaborate with innovative smaller companies.
“They presented us with a problem and a need that they needed us to fulfill at the operational level – which, in this case, was obtaining a secure radio-silent communication method, and we worked on developing a solution that could address their needs in an operational environment.
“DIANA has been instrumental in this effort – and what I personally really like about the programme and its set-up is that it provides the resources and means for the start-ups in the programme to achieve their goals in a tailored way. Especially when it comes to networking and engaging with defence stakeholders, as DIANA really helped us understand how to deliver value to the end-user,” said Maciulis.
Looking ahead, the team at Astrolight plans to replicate this type of collaboration more widely, to hopefully contribute to better and more secure naval and satellite communications within the NATO Alliance.