The Czech Republic has its eyes in space and will have its guardians in orbit – thanks to the Aerospace Research and Testing Institute (VZLÚ), which develops satellites and is the national centre for research and development for the aerospace industry.

The latest successes of VZLÚ include the AMBIC and QUVIK projects. AMBIC is a satellite designed for Earth observation and will help in the work of, for example, rescue workers or firefighters. QUVIK will be the first Czech space telescope developed to observe in the UV spectrum. Both projects won the “Ambitious Projects of the Czech Republic” competition and build on previous VZLÚ activities in the form of VZLUSAT-2 (an Earth observation satellite, which was the first Czech satellite to take HD images of the Czech Republic) and VZLUSAT-1 (which became the longest operating satellite in the history of the Czech Republic).

It is also worth mentioning that VZLU experts have collaborated on several European Space Agency projects. For example, they developed three precision microaccelerometers for the SWARM mission and the ASPIICS coronagraph front door for the PROBA-3 project.