Launching modules into orbit

05 February 2026

In the first instance, it seems incongruous to find the words “space travel” and “Slovakia” in the same sentence. And yet, Slovakia’s space industry has seen significant growth in recent years. The country is now pushing ahead with what is surely has to be its most ambitious space project yet: the development of a modular satellite platform that can be used for a wide variety of missions. Pavla Dohanyosova and her team from ALTER, a subsidiary of the TÜV NORD GROUP, are significantly involved in the Stephanik project.

As an astronomer, he studied solar eclipses on research trips to Tonga, Tahiti and the Galapagos Islands. As a pilot, he fought against the German Reich in the First World War. As a diplomat, he campaigned for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary – and became one of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia. What Milan Rastislav Štefánik either did himself or set in motion in a short life of just 38 years would have been enough for many lifetimes.

Monuments in Bratislava, Prague and other cities in the former Czechoslovakia commemorate Štefánik’s life, and an asteroid has been named after him. Now, over 100 years after his death in 1919, the researcher, aviator and politician has lent his name to Slovakia’s most ambitious space project. “His ability to combine science, technology and diplomacy reflects the spirit of innovation and collaboration that is driving the Stephanik project,” explains Pavla Dohanyosova, project manager at ALTER.

The aim of the project, which features a roster of institutions, companies and research institutions from Slovakia, Spain and Germany, is to develop a modular satellite platform weighing over 150 kilograms that can be used flexibly for different purposes.

On its first mission, the satellite will play its part in ensuring safety in orbit, for instance by keeping an eye on space weather, such as solar storms or cosmic rays which can disrupt or damage communication and GPS satellites. Its remit will also include the monitoring of space objects. It will observe orbiting space debris and other satellites with the aim of avoiding looming collisions. Thanks to its modular principle, it will also be easy to use the satellite platform for telecommunications, testing new technologies or Earth observation: the collection of data for weather forecasts or climate research, for example.

And herein are to be found the advantages of this kind of modular system. Where current practice is to build a completely new satellite every time, it will be possible to reuse the modular building blocks for purposes such as propulsion and to easily and cheaply recombine them so that the satellite can be adapted to different purposes. This will save time and costs for development and production. Components will be replaceable or upgradable in orbit, extending the life of the satellite without generating more space debris. “Since each module can be procured, tested or updated independently, the satellite will also be less susceptible to delays in the supply chain,” explains Ms. Dohanyosova. If bottlenecks occur, it will be a simple matter to change suppliers and swap components for alternatives without delaying the planned launch.

With Stephanik, Slovakia aims to finally establish itself as a significant player in the growing space economy, which, according to EU estimates, is expected to achieve a volume of around 1.6 trillion euros worldwide by 2035. The project will generate pan-European experience in the construction of modular satellites and strengthen the independence in space travel of the EU as a whole, Ms. Dohanyosova says. This is of fundamental importance in times when the very basis of the transatlantic partnership is in question.

Of course, the development of a modular satellite does not come without specific challenges. The subsystems for energy supply, attitude and orbit control, for example, must be harmonised – coordinated with each other to allow them to work together efficiently at all times, even if individual modules in the satellite toolkit should change. “Each subsystem must be able to work independently and be individually testable, which requires the strict standardisation of interfaces early in the design process,” explains Ms. Dohanyosova.

She and her team are playing a significant role in efforts to overcome these challenges. “We’re taking on one of the biggest shares of the technical work, coordinating two technical work packages and ensuring that the entire project meets international standards for safety and sustainability.”

Sustainability is playing a key role in the Stephanik project, which is committed to the European Space Agency’s “Zero Debris Charter” and therefore aims to ensure that its satellites do not add to the problem of space debris in orbit. To achieve this goal and bring waste avoidance a step closer, Ms. Dohanyosova and her colleagues are having to think through various aspects of the project, ranging from the selection of the material and the launch vehicle to questions of how collisions in space can be prevented and the satellite steered out of orbit into the Earth’s atmosphere in a controlled manner at the end of its life to allow it to burn up harmlessly.

Ms. Dohanyosova and her ALTER team of around twenty experts from different disciplines are also providing support in the selection of test procedures and components to ensure that all parts of the modular satellite will be able to cope with the extreme conditions in space. These tests are a speciality of ALTER’s experts, who have already contributed their expertise to numerous ESA and NASA missions.

Ms. Dohanyosova has herself taken on two principal tasks in the project: she is coordinating the ALTER team, while also heading up the “Design & Concept” work package. Her task is to oversee the design development and ensure that the technical work progresses according to plan and that the results are aligned with the project goal.

Coordinating a wide range of stakeholders from different countries and disciplines is a highly complex job. “But it’s precisely this combination of technical challenges, international cooperation and knowledge transfer that’s making this work so exciting and rewarding for me,” says Ms. Dohanyosova.

The first phase of the project is largely complete. In the next, the concept behind the satellite will be further examined and refined over a number of feasibility stages. In other words, there’s still a lot to do before Stephanik’s name will finally be lent to numerous monuments that will hurtle around our blue planet at 25,000 kilometres per hour.