In 2022, I thought of trying to build a satellite. A few months later, I proceeded to get adequately organized, and that’s when I formed the first private venture called Ardavanis Sat Lab.  Ardavanis Sat Lab is the first private satellite venture in Greece, and its objective is to open new horizons for Greek engineers.

Ardavanis Sat Laboratory plans to develop some novel satellite technologies. The satellite to be built is based on a CubeSat specification. It will be a liter in volume, weighing less than a kilogram. It is planned to be launched in 2025 through a spaceflight US company. 

The primary mission is a proof-of-concept. Ardavanis Sat Laboratory wants to prove that it has the technological capability to build the satellite from scratch and make it operate. Also, Ardavanis Sat Laboratory intends to prove that it can develop the legal knowledge to navigate things like defense and trade controls to get it to the rocket provider. 

The implementation of CubeSats will provide us with the opportunity to develop more mesh satellite networkable capabilities. Because these satellites are so small and relatively cheap to produce, the Ardavanis Sat Laboratory plans to send up, in the future, entire clusters of these. If they can work together, the laboratory should be able to do some novel things.

This program aims to give a push in space technology in Greece, as well as the experience that could help the local engineers to go to places like NASA or the European Space Agency and say they have worked on satellites and spacecraft. But Ardavanis Sat Laboratory hopes many of these engineers can stay and help form the local Greek satellite industry.  

Georgios Ardavanis 03/01/2023