Lithuanian Space Agency
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| Consist | since 2009 | ||
| Headquarters |
Vilnius Lithuania
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| Coordinates | 54 ° 41 '11 " N , 25 ° 17' 5" E | ||
| Website | http://www.space-lt.eu/ | ||
The Lithuanian Space Agency , Lietuvos kosmoso asociacija ( LKA ) in Lithuanian , is a space agency based in Vilnius . Together with partners, it developed the first two Lithuanian satellites.
history
In 2007, several Lithuanian institutions and companies signed a cooperation agreement to establish the National Technology Platform for Space Technology. After a year, the Lithuanian government commissioned the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania to start cooperation negotiations with the European Space Agency (ESA) .
In 2009 the Lithuanian Space Agency was officially established. Since October 2014, Lithuania has been a member of the European Cooperation State (ECS) with ESA.
In 2014 the LKA launched the first two Lithuanian Cubesat satellites LitSat-1 and LituanicaSAT-1 via the NanoRacks SmallSat Deployment Program. They were launched from the International Space Station on February 28, 2014 after taking off from the Wallops Flight Facility on January 9 in the Cygnus spacecraft .