Synopsis
Spacetech startup GalaxEye successfully launched its first earth observation satellite, Mission Drishti, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. This 190-kg satellite, developed over five years, combines electro-optical and SAR sensors for all-weather, day and night imaging, aiming to deliver valuable data to clients globally.Listen to this article in summarized format
The 190-kg satellite, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg, California, is the largest privately built satellite in India and enables all-weather, day-and-night imaging by fusing electro-optical and radar data streams.
GalaxEye chief executive Suyash Singh, speaking to ET from California, said the company is already seeing strong global interest in the differentiated datasets enabled by its OptoSAR payload. “We have interests from different commercial customers,” he said.
The imagery has a resolution of 1.2 to 3.6 meters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on microblogging site X hailed the mission as a “major achievement in our space journey” and said it is “a testament to our youth’s passion for innovation and nation-building.”
CEO Singh said the launch represents the culmination of over five years of indigenous research and development. “With the satellite now successfully in orbit, our immediate focus is on completing its commissioning,” he said.
He said GalaxEye’s channel partners across 20 countries, who resell satellite imagery specifically to governments, “have signed up to do an early valuation of our data, and buy it eventually.”
“GalaxEye cannot go to any country and just sell it… You need to go through local partners,” Singh explained. “And there are a lot of local partners who provide analytics-based services to their governments, on top of satellite imagery. So, we sell satellite imagery to these partners and then they perform analytics on top of it and give it to their subsequent governments. So, we will route our satellite imagery through them, where their analytics will sit on top of our imagery and then go to the end user.”
Mission Drishti addresses a long-standing limitation in earth observation – data gaps caused by cloud cover or poor lighting – by enabling seamless imaging regardless of the weather or time of day. This capability is expected to significantly improve reliability and frequency of satellite-based intelligence for applications ranging from defence and disaster management to agriculture and infrastructure planning.
The satellite is expected to begin delivering initial imagery to customers in the coming weeks.
GalaxEye has also partnered with NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), for global distribution of its satellite data, a move expected to expand access to advanced earth observation capabilities.
Pawan Goenka, chairman of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (In-Space), said, “As more Indian space companies demonstrate their capabilities through real missions and engagement with global customers, confidence in India’s space ecosystem will continue to strengthen.”
Industry bodies also pointed to the strategic implications of the mission.
Lt Gen AK Bhatt (Retd), director general of Indian Space Association (ISpA), described it as a “pivotal shift” toward sovereign, all-weather surveillance capabilities critical for national security and disaster response.
“With the world’s first commercial OptoSAR sensor, GalaxEye has achieved what only a few global players have, combining optical and SAR capabilities on a single platform for persistent intelligence,” Bhatt said, adding that downstream applications using such data will increasingly define value in the space economy.
Founded in 2021 by IIT Madras alumni, GalaxEye plans to build a constellation of ten OptoSAR satellites over the next few years, positioning itself as a key player in both domestic and international geospatial intelligence markets.
“We are still evolving on our constellation size and we'll see how it goes. But at least 10 is what we plan to launch in the next two-and-a-half years,” Singh told ET.
