Indian startup GalaxEye to develop world's first satellite with both SAR, optical sensors

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) incubated imaging satellite operator GalaxEye has inked an MoU with California-based satellite software provider Antaris to develop the world’s first satellite containing both Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical sensors. Satellite constellations deployed today capture data at different times from different locations. This often results in consumers wasting a lot of time making sense of data delivered by a multitude of satellites. The new multi-sensor satellite will capture both SAR and optical data from the same satellite to improve the correlation and analytical utility of the data generated.

Expected to be launched in late 2023, the datasets delivered by the satellite will especially be of immense value to environmental, insurance and defence applications, the company said in a statement shared with Business Today.

Terming the partnership as a ‘milestone’ in India’s commercial space sector, CEO Suyash Singh said, “We strongly believe that our combined expertise will result in a successful mission of GalaxEye’s satellite, which will provide superior geospatial imagery to our customers. This is a unique start-up collaboration in the space sector in India and will be further strengthened through support from ISRO and IN-SPACe.”

As part of the arrangement, the internationally certified aerospace master systems integrator, Ananth Technologies, and service provider for satellites, XDLINX Labs, will also be involved in the project.

“The Antaris software platform was specifically designed as an end-to-end solution to help dramatically simplify the design, build and management of satellites. The opportunity to join forces with our friends at Ananth Technologies, GalaxEye and XDLINX to provide a breakthrough solution for a multi-payload satellite imaging constellation is a great example of what our flexible platform was designed to do,” said co-founder & CEO of Antaris, Tom Barton.

Under the terms of the agreement, Antaris will provide the software as service (SaaS) technology platform required to design, stimulate, build and manage the earth observation satellite from GalaxEye and its onboard Drishti sensor. Ananth Technologies will provide Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) services and manufacturing capabilities. XDLINX Labs will be responsible for design of the satellite bus or the main body and supply chain integration services.

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