Croatian-made satellite software, which is 20 times faster than NASA's, was bought by the world's largest commercial satellite operator to be used by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Developed by Zagreb-based Amphinicy Technologies, the world’s fastest software for receiving satellite data called Blink was bought by SES, a company operating almost 60 communication satellites, Poslovni dnevnik reported on Tuesday (March 20).

“Amphinicy signed a contract for the first delivery to SES, who bought it to be used by the European Space Agency (ESA), and the delivery is currently underway. We also talked about Blink with NASA last week, and a number of other organisations also expressed interest in it,” said Tomislav Nakić-Alfirević of Amphinicy, adding that the project is still in the “early stage of commercialisation”.

The development of Blink was subsidised with 1.3 million euros of EU funding. It allows converting existing links used to receive satellite data into high-speed connections.

“Blink supports the process of receiving satellite data on the ground, and makes it cheaper, faster and improves its quality, which can be applied in many different areas,” said Nakić-Alfirević.

The company plans to develop the technology further to enable real-time processing of satellite data, which could enable faster reaction to global events such as earthquakes, floods, or migrant crises. It could also be applied to agriculture, ecology, and logistics.

Amphinicy plans to use EU funding to develop Blink to be capable of even higher transfer speeds, which will create some 15 new jobs at the company, Poslovni dnevnik reported.