Stellar Project

Stellar Project is a French space technology company developing compact laser communication terminals for nanosatellites and microsatellites, with its flagship LaserCube product providing optical intersatellite links (OISL) and high-bandwidth ground downlink for platforms as small as 2U CubeSats.

LaserCube occupies a 2U volume (2 kg mass) and delivers 1 Gbps downlink throughput — approximately 10 times the data rate achievable with equivalent-volume RF solutions operating in X-band or Ka-band. The terminal uses near-infrared laser wavelengths (typically 1550 nm telecommunications band) with precise fine pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) mechanisms that maintain sub-millidegree beam alignment while satellites move at 7+ km/s. This combination of miniaturization and pointing performance is the core technical challenge Stellar Project has addressed through custom photonics integration and lightweight steering mirror assemblies.

Stellar Project achieved flight heritage with a LaserCube demonstration on the SpaceX Transporter-2 rideshare mission in 2021, validating on-orbit pointing acquisition and data transmission from a commercial nanosatellite. The demonstration confirmed compatibility with standard CubeSat bus interfaces and thermal management approaches, de-risking adoption by constellation operators seeking to increase contact throughput without scaling to larger bus platforms.

The company targets Earth observation, IoT gateway, and smallsat constellation backhaul applications where data latency and volume constraints cannot be met by legacy RF downlinks. Stellar Project competes with Mynaric (Germany), Tesat-Spacecom, SITAEL, and SA Photonics in the space optical communications terminal market, differentiating through CubeSat form factor integration rather than large-platform laser terminals.