NASA’s international projects had not been disrupted so far, Laurynas Mačiulis, the project’s technical manager, said adding that the date of the launch scheduled for December 8 remained unchanged.
“As far as we know, funding for international projects has not been suspended. Therefore it will not affect our project,” he told BNS.
The satellite will be launched into space by the University of Vilnius and public agency Innovative Engineering Projects in cooperation with Nanoracks, a privately-owned company delivering payloads to the International Space Station.
As scheduled, the satellite will be sent to the US on October 17 and will be tested by NASA in November. The launch of the satellite into space should be cleared by the NASA Safety Panel next month.
The satellite will be launched into space from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. The first Lithuanian words from space will be transmitted once LituanicaSAT-1 reaches the orbit of the Earth. According to the project initiators, this is the first time that the entire terrestrial infrastructure required to support the satellite’s mission has been created in Lithuania.
LituanicaSAT-1, a project which involved more than 30 people, is scheduled to fly around the Earth for more than six months. The satellite will carry out space research, the first in Lithuania’s history.
