If you’ve ever been out at sea, you may be aware that it’s near impossible to catch a good signal on your phone. Instead, seafarers rely on radio-frequency-based systems to communicate with other ships—a method with many advantages but potential shortcomings for more discreet, sensitive missions.
But a new technology developed by Astrolight, a Lithuanian space and defense tech company, proposes to switch out radio for lasers, which the company calls a “secure, optical” tool for marine operations. In an emailed press release, Astrolight reported that its installation and testing of POLARIS, a laser-based system, successfully handled communications for REPMUS 2025, NATO’s largest annual naval exercise.
“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,” explained Astrolight CEO Laurynas Maciulis in a release. Their customers, the Lithuanian Navy, were also “very satisfied with the results,” he added.
Lasers at sea
According to Astrolight, POLARIS is a “small, gimballed free space optical (FSO) communication solution for large naval vessels” weighing about 35 pounds (16 kilograms). Essentially, an FSO device converts data into a binary format, which is then transmitted to the receiving end in the form of a light signal.
Ordinary remote controls use a very simplified version of this technology, which allows data to travel through “free space,” whether that is air, outer space, or a vacuum. That flexibility potentially makes it useful for a variety of applications.
In this case, POLARIS achieved “a radio-silent, unjammable, and undetectable communication link between the ships,” reported DIANA, a NATO initiative for contracting the private sector to deliver technological solutions to security issues. Impressively, the terminals established a secure, private connection between two ships over a 9-mile (15-kilometer) range, “exceeding their initial targets by 200%,” DIANA stated in a LinkedIn post.
In addition, the terminals successfully processed gigabytes of data for “more than 10 concurrent, real-time HD video streams, even through rain and fog, during the day and night,” according to Astrolight’s statement.
Lasers in space?
“With persistent and rising GPS jamming attacks in NATO territories, we needed to test [POLARIS] in real-life conditions as soon as possible,” added Astrolight CTO Dalius Petrulionis in the same release. “Exercise results showed that our laser technology is a reliable and operable alternative to radio frequency-based communication—now it’s time to scale.”
With the success of POLARIS, Astrolight hopes to first expand the use of its terminals on ships. It’s also reviewing whether similar systems could work for research operations in harsh, cold environments, such as the Arctic.
But the company’s grandest goals appear to be in outer space. Across the different media posts, it noted its upcoming plans for ATLAS-2, an optical terminal meant to support satellite communications in and out of Earth. The terminal’s launch is currently slated to take place in early 2026.
