Chennai, March 5 (UNI) Indian space startup GalaxEye Space Solutions, after building the 190 kg OptoSAR satellite, the heaviest to be built by an Indian private player, is now gearing up to make 300 kg satellites, said a top company official.
“It will be our second-generation satellite that will provide 0.5 metre resolution images. The preliminary design review is now on,” Suyash Singh, Co-Founder and CEO, said. OptoSAR satellite is the one combining optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. According to him, several components used in the first satellite are compatible with spacecraft weighing up to 500 kg, allowing the company to reuse systems across future missions while controlling costs.
The company plans to continue satellite manufacturing in India while considering the creation of a US subsidiary to support business development. GalaxEye is also preparing to begin operations at a new facility in Bengaluru, which is expected to become operational within six months.
Meanwhile, the company is preparing to launch the world’s first OptoSAR satellite in the coming months aboard a Falcon 9 operated by SpaceX. The spacecraft, weighing about 190 kg, is powered by electric propulsion, according to Singh, the company’s co-founder and CEO.
The satellite is the first of 10 spacecraft planned under the Drishti constellation, which aims to deliver continuous Earth observation with the ability to capture images regardless of weather conditions or time of day. “The world’s first OptoSAR spacecraft is ready to be shipped to SpaceX’s launch site in the United States,” Singh said, adding that the launch is expected in two to two-and-a-half months.
The Gen-1 satellite is designed with a mission life of four to five years and will provide imagery with 1–1.5 metre resolution. Its global revisit time—the frequency with which it can capture images of the same location—is expected to be seven to 10 days, with faster coverage over the polar regions.
The company plans to continue satellite manufacturing in India while considering the creation of a US subsidiary to support business development. GalaxEye is also preparing to begin operations at a new facility in Bengaluru, which is expected to become operational within six months.
The Drishti constellation is designed to address a long-standing challenge in Earth observation: the limitations of optical satellites during nighttime or cloudy weather. By combining optical sensors with SAR technology, the satellites will provide all-weather, day-and-night imaging capabilities. According to Singh, the system will correlate SAR data with optical imagery, enabling users to receive optical-style images even when radar data is collected.
This capability could support governments, defence organisations, and commercial sectors by enabling advanced geospatial analysis and monitoring. GalaxEye has signed an agreement with NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, to resell satellite imagery generated by the constellation.
The startup has raised about $14.5 million so far and plans to begin its next funding round after the first satellite enters orbit, Singh said. GalaxEye was incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and was founded by a team of five students and alumni who previously collaborated in Team Avishkar Hyperloop, a student engineering competition team.
Reflecting on the journey in a recent post on X, Singh described the satellite as the result of more than 1,600 days of development, overcoming skepticism and technical challenges to build what the company describes as a world-first space technology. “The satellite is ready,” he wrote. “And we are just getting started.”
