Lithuania in the News
26th May 2013
First Lithuanian Satellite to be Launched
Laurynas Mačiulis (left) and Vytenis Buzas at the NASA Ames Center.
Photo courtesy studyinlithiuania.lt
Visualising Lituanica SAT-1.
Photo courtesy vgtu.lt
The first Lithuanian satellite “Lituanica SAT-1” is due to be launched by NASA on November 11, 2013. It is being designed and built by a team of young Lithuanian engineering graduates. The leader of the project is Vytenis Buzas and the technical leader is Laurynas Mačiulis, both graduates of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. The project is being carried out in cooperation with NASA, Vilnius University, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuanian Space Association and other bodies. One of the unique features of the 10 cm cube, 1.3 kg Lithuanian nanosatellite is a FM radio retransmitter. It will be launched into an orbit 400 km above earth and it is expected it will stay in orbit about 6 months.
Lithuanians are no strangers to space exploration. There have been two astronauts of Lithuanian heritage and each has been a veteran of three space flights. They are the American astronaut Karol Bobko, whose mother was Lithuanian Petronėlė Sagatis, and the Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Yeliseyev, whose father was Lithuanian Stanislovas Kuraitis.

Further information:
http://www.kosmonautai.lt/
http://www.studyinlithuania.lt/en/news/lithuanianstudentstolaunchcountrysfirstsatellite
http://www.vgtu.lt/media/files/24/inz-02-2013-1-.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_J._Bobko
http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksejus_Jelisejevas