UVIRESO Space

Uvireso, UAB is a Vilnius-based electric propulsion startup and a member of the ESA Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) Lithuania. The company is developing a Hall-effect thruster (HET) that replaces the industry-standard xenon or krypton propellant with bismuth, a dense, abundant, low-cost metal that is solid at room temperature and melts for feeding into the thruster.

By switching to bismuth, Uvireso aims to cut propellant tank volume by up to 3.5 times or extend mission duration accordingly, while also improving safety: solid bismuth cannot leak or explode under launch loads, can be shaped to fit any tank geometry, and is easier to handle during satellite integration and in-orbit servicing than pressurized noble-gas systems. The thruster is being designed for an operating range of roughly 100-500 W with a specific impulse near 1400 s, targeting micro- and small-satellite missions in Earth navigation, telecommunications and exploration, including collision avoidance, phasing, station-keeping and end-of-life disposal maneuvers.

Uvireso's current work spans plasma and magnetic-topology simulation, electron gun and electron-transport testing, bismuth wettability and ionization experiments, and thermal/flow modelling of the thruster channel and anode. The company operates its own vacuum test facility in Vilnius (a 2.5 x 0.9 m stainless-steel vacuum chamber reaching 1x10-6 mBar) and offers R&D services - modelling, simulation and vacuum testing support - to outside partners in EMC, thermal and structural domains.

The company is partnered with Vilnius University, Vilnius Tech and the Sunrise Tech Park EU StartUp Hub, participates in ESA's FLPP programme, and is targeting space qualification of its bismuth Hall thruster by 2028. Uvireso is actively seeking consortia partners for ESA, Horizon, NATO, Eureka and Eurostars calls, as well as satellite integrators interested in co-developing HET sub-systems.