On January 9, 2014, while the whole world watched Orbital's Cygnus launch to ISS, Lithuanians had their eyes on a small satellite onboard the Antares rocket lifting off from Wallops Island. Lituanica SAT-1 was successfully launched among other cubesats and a cargo craft to space station, giving the country a solid reason to be space proud.
Lithuania is the country with no significant space exploration history, thus launching nation's first satellite is really a major milestone in spaceflight for this Baltic state.
"The project met huge interest from the society, especially as it was from the very beginning well publicized in the media" Laurynas Mačiulis, chief mission engineer told astrowatch.net.
"It's wonderful to see that a country like Lithuania, your president is excited, that everybody is excited, and it's wonderful that you could deliver it to your country and your people, without astronomical costs." said Nanoracks CEO, Jeffrey Manber.
Nanoracks provided the launch for LituanicaSAT-1.
It is a US comercial company which has the capability to put comercial payload on ISS.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LituanicaSAT1?feature=watch
http://www.astrowatch.net/2014/01/lithuanias-first-satellite-to-send.html#more
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