12/20/2023 0 Comments Cosmo run race series![]() The Tatas have also revived their telecom ambitions and are getting into satellite communication. India’s telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal is putting his wealth and credibility behind broadband from space. With the space sector energised, heavyweights are also showing renewed interest. With these policy changes and reforms, the sector is now seeing growing participation of private players in a domain that until now was largely under government control.Īs a result, India now has around 100 active space tech start-ups. In May 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the inclusion of private players in the space sector.įollowing this, the Union Cabinet announced the formation of an autonomous agency, IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre), an extension of ISRO, to help private players in space-related activities and regulate private tech innovation in the space. Why is the space sector exciting right now? Satellite imagery and remote sensing data are invaluable tools for use cases such as weather, agriculture, commodities, and insurance. Pixxel’s satellite constellation can provide global coverage every 24-hours, to detect, monitor, and predict global phenomena. The startup also has a machine learning platform to mine actionable insights from data. The startup primarily focuses on two things - developing the technology and setting up the infrastructure to build a constellation of satellites. While Agnikul and Skyroot Aerospace are building launch vehicles, Pixxel is aiming to put a constellation of more than 30 earth observation micro-satellites in space. Other notable investors include former WhatsApp global business chief Neeraj Arora, and Myntra and CureFit founder Mukesh Bansal. On the start-up’s board of directors, sits the Solar Group, a major space and defence supplier. It had previously raised US$1.5 m in 2018. The startup has raised US$11 m in its series A round of funding. A scaled-up version will be built and tested at ISRO’s facilities before powering the Vikram rocket by December 2021. It has already test-fired a solid propulsion rocket engine named Kalam-5. It’s targeting the first orbital launch of Vikram 1 around mid-2022. This is not possible using existing vehicles in the market. These are essentially the same with a 20% upgrade but together cover the largest payload ranges from launching 1 kg to 700 kg of satellites. It’s plan in the near term is to commercialise Vikram-1 and roll out the follow-on variants Vikram-2 and 3. The series is named after the father of the Indian Space program – Dr Vikram Sarabhai. The startup has been actively developing its Vikram series of launch vehicles for the past two years. Similar to Agnikul, Skyroot Aerospace is building rockets for launching payloads (satellites for now and in future humans as well) to space. It has also received an investment from industrialist Anand Mahindra. It previously raised US$ 3.1 m in May 2020 from institutional investors and a seed round of funding from Speciale Invest in 2019. In May 2021, Agnikul raised US$11 m in a Series A funding. The start-up recently test-fired a fully 3D printed semi-cryo rocket engine. The first commercial launch is expected in 2022. The launch vehicle will be manufactured using 3D printing for which Agnikul has signed an MoU with EOS India, a global leader in 3D printing technology.
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