Atle Wøllo was appointed Kongsberg NanoAvionics CEO in 2024, after serving as senior vice president for special programs and Kongsberg Aviation Maintenance Services division president. Credit: Kongsberg NanoAvionics
NanoAvionics, founded in 2014, was known for producing individual satellites and small constellations until April, when the company won a 122.5-million-euro contract ($142 million) to build the initial 280 satellites for SpinLaunch’s Meridian Space broadband constellation. How did the small satellite manufacturer and mission integrator based in Vilnius, Lithuania, position itself for large orders? Was Kongsberg’s 2022 decision to acquire NanoAvionics an important ingredient? A few days before SmallSat Europe, SpaceNews caught up with Atle Wøllo, Kongsberg NanoAvionics CEO and Kongsberg Space senior vice president, to find out.
SpaceNews: The SpinLaunch contract KSAT NanoAvionics announced in April seems like a departure for the company. Is it?
Atle Wøllo: Yes and no. Big constellations were always a goal. But to win the contract and to be able to execute it is very important to have the Kongsberg owner and have Kongsberg in the background. I have worked more than 30 years in Kongsberg in different roles. I’ve been CEO of other companies, and I’ve set up scaling of production from very small scale to big volume. We were selected because we had a good product, we had a good technical design and we had the Kongsberg background with the experience of scaling up.
