GalaxEye to launch world's first multi-sensor satellite next year

Chennai-based space start-up GalaxEye plans to launch the world's first multi-sensor satellite next year. The satellite would be capable of observing Earth night and day, even peering through dense clouds.

In an interaction with PTI, GalaxEye Space co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Suyash Singh said the satellite -- Mission Drishti -- synchronises two complementary sensors, thus pioneering data fusion at its core.

The new multi-sensor satellite will capture both Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and data from optical sensors from the same satellite to improve the correlation and analytical utility of the data generated.

Singh said the current optical sensors can capture pictures of Earth in quite detail, including identifying the vegetation level of crops, but these fail in cloudy conditions or at night.

"We are trying to mix and match. The current sensors are not available in the absence of sunlight or if there is a cloud cover. SAR is a very good sensor, not dependent on sunlight, and can work at night," Singh said.

The technology will enable the production of images with extremely high resolution via a small satellite constellation that, once fully operational, will provide global coverage in less than 12 hours.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) incubated start-up has identified insurance companies in the agriculture and natural disaster sectors, besides defence and intelligence, as their potential customers.

Singh believes that the data from Mission Drishti could potentially streamline the insurance-claiming process for both the providers and the claimants.

"We are planning to have a constellation of 10 satellites, which would depend on the demand for datasets," he said.

Founded in 2020 by Singh, Denil Chawda, Kishan Thakkar, Pranit Mehta, Rakshit Bhatt and Professor S R Chakravarthy, GalaxEye has signed partnerships and commercial contracts with several leading organisations in the space-tech ecosystem, including US-based space software provider Antaris Inc.

They have also entered into partnerships with QL Space, XDLINX Labs, Ananth Technologies and Dassault Systemes.