From NASA to Jena: A student’s journey from photonics research to entrepreneurship
From Caltech and NASA to the Abbe School of Photonics and his own space-tech company: Master’s student Tanmay Gupta has followed an unusually international path through science, engineering and industry. In Jena, he has found an environment where photonics research and entrepreneurship come together. His story was recently featured by ZEIT Germany.
From left to right: Prof. Denis Barataud (University of Limoges), Tanmay Gupta (MSc Photonics student), and Irene Weinzierl (MSc Photonics coordinator).
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Published: | By: Christian Helgert, with a little polishing help by AI.
From Caltech and NASA to the Abbe School of Photonics and his own space-tech company: Master’s student Tanmay Gupta has followed an unusually international path through science, engineering and industry. In Jena, he has found an environment where photonics research and entrepreneurship come together. His story was recently featured by ZEIT Germany.
Tanmay Gupta has long been interested not only in understanding technology, but in building it. Today, he studies photonics in Jena within the European EMIMEP – European Master for Industry in Microwave Electronics and Photonics program at the Abbe School of Photonics. At the same time, he is CEO and co-founder of Lokantara Space, a young company developing computing infrastructure for space. The combination is a natural continuation of a path that has repeatedly taken Gupta between fundamental science, engineering and real-world applications.
From Caltech to space instrumentation
Tanmay Gupta presenting at the EMIMEP Summer School 2026.
Image: Irene WeinzierlBefore coming to Jena, Gupta studied Physics with a minor in Aerospace Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His undergraduate years already combined research with hands-on technological development. He worked on superconducting detectors for astronomical telescopes, on optical analysis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and later on telescope payloads for Earth-observation satellites at Planet Labs.
His motivation was clear early on. One example was his involvement in a Caltech team developing a modular electrodynamic system for removing lunar dust. The project received $180,000 in NASA funding. His Caltech advisor later highlighted not only Gupta’s technical contribution, but also his ability to communicate ideas, initiate projects and connect academic and industrial perspectives.
Why Jena?
When Gupta applied to the EMIMEP programme, Jena was already his preferred destination for the second year of his studies. He had deliberately choosen the breadth of photonics research at the Abbe Center of Photonics, practical courses involving industry experts and the opportunity to work independently in facilities such as the Lichtwerkstatt makerspaceExternal link. Equally important was the environment beyond the university such as Jena's combination of academic photonics research with companies and institutes covering many stages of technology development. For someone interested in turning scientific ideas into working systems, that ecosystem offered an attractive next step. That decision has since become directly connected to Gupta’s entrepreneurial ambitions.
From photonics student to founder
Gupta is now CEO and co-founder of Lokantara SpaceExternal link. The company aims to bring high-performance computing into orbit, developing space-qualified AI computing infrastructure for applications ranging from Earth observation to secure and sovereign computing. One motivation is to process large quantities of satellite data directly in orbit rather than transferring all raw data back to Earth. The connection to Jena is tangible. Lokantara Space states that it is working with Fraunhofer IOF in Jena on hardware prototyping and received a Digital Innovation Hub Photonics grant in 2026. The company is also part of the Entrepreneurs First 2026 deep-tech cohort. For Gupta, entrepreneurship is therefore not a departure from his scientific background. It is a continuation of the same idea that shaped his earlier work at Caltech, NASA and Planet Labs: bringing together scientific understanding, engineering and implementation.
A student story noticed beyond Jena
Gupta’s path has now also attracted attention outside the university. A recent ZEIT Germany feature presents him as an example of an international student who consciously chose Germany and Jena for the opportunities offered by its photonics ecosystem. The article connects his story with Jena’s long tradition in optics, but Gupta’s own trajectory points equally strongly toward its future: new technologies, interdisciplinary research and the possibility of creating companies from scientific ideas. His story captures an important aspect of the Abbe School of Photonics: international education in Jena can offer more than academic specialization alone. It can provide a setting in which students connect research with industry, experimentation and entrepreneurship — and use photonics as a starting point for building something new.
Link to the ZEIT Campus article featuring the University of Jena and Tanmay GuptaExternal link
Link to Lokontara Space Inc.External link
Impressions of the EMIMEO Summer School 2026 in Jena
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