The skies above Earth are filling fast. With hundreds of thousands of satellites planned by China, SpaceX, and Blue Origin, radio frequency bands are creaking under the pressure, disrupting everything from Earth imaging to astronomy.
One European start-up believes it has found a solution: Astrolight, a Lithuanian space-tech company, is developing laser-based communication systems that can transmit vastly more data, immune to interference, and potentially unlock a new era of high-speed, secure satellite connectivity.
According to ABI Research, more than 30,000 satellites are expected to launch over the next five years. While orbital space itself is vast, the invisible infrastructure that allows satellites to communicate — the radio frequency spectrum — is tightly constrained and heavily regulated.
Unlike physical space, radio spectrum is finite. Each band is pre-allocated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for specific purposes, from satellite communications to mobile networks, aviation, maritime systems, and emergency services. This allocation system ensures that transmissions from one satellite do not interfere with others, particularly systems operating in geostationary orbits, which remain fixed over the same point on Earth.
Space jam
Yet as Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos’s Project Kuiper launch thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit, these restrictions are being tested, exposing the limits of a system designed for far fewer players.
With each new satellite comes a need for spectrum to send telemetry, control signals, downlink data, and sometimes communicate with other satellites. Radio waves, even when directed, spread beyond their intended target, creating interference risks and forcing operators into complex coordination agreements.
“Some of the uses of RF comms for satellites already reached a limit,” said Laurynas Mačiulis, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Astrolight, speaking exclusively to IoT Insider from Vilnius. “Maybe this is not evident from a consumer point of view, but from a satellite operator perspective, you see that operators are moving to much higher frequencies. There was a lot of discussion about SpaceX acquiring spectrum for very large amounts of money — that just shows how scarce RF spectrum is becoming.”
The pressure is compounded by modern satellites themselves. Earth observation systems now produce hyperspectral imagery, high-resolution video, and radar datasets far larger than previous generations. Even if spectrum were not scarce, the demand per satellite is rising faster than available bandwidth. Operators respond by moving to higher frequency bands — which are technically challenging — or compressing data onboard, which limits operational flexibility.
Astrolight’s answer is to bypass radio spectrum entirely.
“We are building a new type of communications system which will be based on lasers instead of radio waves,” Mačiulis said. “We are building up a set of products and solutions across different domains and verticals — to connect satellites with the ground, satellites with each other, and also naval ships or terrestrial point-to-point connectivity, both for civil and military use cases.”
“The basic vulnerability of RF is that radio waves spread widely,” Mačiulis explained. “Antennas are typically wide field of view, and it’s very easy to jam or spoof a signal. Even if you encrypt it, everybody can see that the signal is there. And especially if it’s weak, it’s easy to drown it in noise.”
Lasers behave differently
“Lasers are extremely directional. It’s point-to-point — you are only transmitting information to that specific party, and you only see information coming from that party. You are not sensitive at all to outside signals. That extreme directionality is what makes it so secure on a physical layer.”
Because the beam is narrow and does not radiate outward, laser communication does not create the same kind of shared-spectrum congestion. Each optical link effectively becomes its own isolated corridor. In theory, scaling to tens of thousands of satellites does not create the same interference dynamics that plague RF systems.
Capacity is equally central to Astrolight’s pitch.
“Now we give you an instrument to download 10, 100 times more data,” Mačiulis said. “You don’t need to sacrifice onboard processing power. You can save all the data and process it on the ground, where you have much larger resources. You even don’t know when you will need that data — maybe you come back to it one year later.”
For hyperspectral Earth observation and precision agriculture, that could mean richer datasets and better long-term analysis. “The more data you give to AI, the more clever it becomes,” he added.
Astrolight’s Atlas laser terminal has already been integrated into the European Space Agency-funded ERMIS satellite. One of the principal technical challenges is maintaining precise alignment between fast-moving satellites and ground stations.
“The typical challenge when implementing lasers on satellites is pointing,” Mačiulis explained. “You need to point that laser very precisely.”
To reduce that burden, Astrolight built fine-pointing capability into the terminal itself. “Our terminal can steer the beam up to 20 degrees wide, and we have a tracking sensor that can track signals up to two degrees wide. That makes it much easier for the satellite to acquire and lock to the signal, even if the satellite does not point extremely precisely.”
The unit measures roughly 10 by 10 by 10 centimetres, small enough for CubeSats and microsatellites, which form a large part of the projected 70,000-satellite expansion.
‘Clouding’ the issue
Laser communication is not without drawbacks. It requires clear line-of-sight between satellites and ground stations and is vulnerable to cloud cover. “It’s one of the challenges with laser communication,” Mačiulis acknowledged. “You couldn’t rely on one single place 24/7. But if you have multiple landing points from the Earth, and also the capability to route data in space through inter-satellite links, it becomes no problem. You can create a global network even in places that are cloudy some of the time.”
To mitigate these limitations, Astrolight has deployed what it describes as the first Arctic optical ground station in Greenland. High-latitude positioning increases satellite pass frequency for polar-orbiting systems, while parts of Greenland offer Arctic desert conditions for significant portions of the year, providing clearer skies than much of Western Europe. “From a satellite operator perspective, you benefit from a global network,” Mačiulis added. “Maybe it’s cloudy in the UK, but the data can be routed through other stations where skies are clear.”
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