Beyond Isro, India's spy sat makers eye $100m each by 2029

Beyond Isro, India's spy sat makers eye $100m each by 2029

New Delhi, Sept. 28 -- Top private space startups are riding a wave of privatization to build global commercial businesses, leveraging India's space agreements with multiple countries which are looking to strengthen space surveillance capabilities.

Digantara Research and Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Pixxel Space India Pvt. Ltd and GalaxEye Space Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which have gained a foothold in the space sector through government contracts, are now looking to expand abroad. The race to space comes as New Delhi shifts from its decades-old state monopoly to a Nasa model, focusing Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro) resources on research and technology, while leaving manufacturing and commercialization to the private industry.

Bengaluru-based Digantara, backed by Reliance Industries Ltd, SBI Ventures and Peak XV, is building a military-grade space map. According to chief executive Anirudh Sharma, the project is expected to generate $30 million in annual operating revenue by the end of FY27, and $100 million by end-2029.

"India's private satellite industry is already seeing interest from clients around the world, and they will tap that as an export revenue opportunity for India. This will play alongside the three government-operated surveillance satellite constellations, which are for India's own use cases. While India's own bilateral trade agreements may help private space operators get a pie of commercial contracts from global clients, all of this needs to be proved in practice. That will require private companies to build more high-resolution, specialized military-grade space surveillance technologies, such as what we are building," Sharma said.

"We're increasingly seeing demand emerge from markets such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and others. In most countries, governments require us to set up local units in partnership with a homegrown entity there, and we're in the process of doing that to work toward our 2029 revenue goal," Sharma added.

India is a signatory to the US Artemis Accords for manned lunar missions and has partnered with Japan on Chandrayaan-5 and with private space startups, and with Australia for satellite and rocket launch services. Joint agreements for space promotion involving the private sector exist between India and the above three nations, while European nations also collaborate with Isro for scientific missions.

Two other private space companies hoping to reap the rewards of space are fellow Bengaluru-born startups, Pixxel and GalaxEye. Backed by Google, Temasek and Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pixxel won a Rs.1,200-crore contract from Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (In-Space) last August, to build an array of space surveillance satellites by 2029.

Digantara tied up with a Singapore government body in February to offer its space surveillance capability for sovereign usage. It also won a similar contract in Thailand in March. Digantara did not disclose the sizes of either deals, stating only that these were multi-year contracts and not limited pilots. Both follow a contract it won from India's defence ministry in June last year.

GalaxEye, backed by Infosys, Speciale Invest, and MountTech Growth Fund, was among the first to be selected to build a high-resolution surveillance satellite in India. On Thursday, it also received Rs.63.84 crore from the government's Research Development and Innovation fund.

GalaxEye expects the Indian government contracts to provide global launch velocity. Despite losing contact with its first optical imaging satellite, Drishti, on 7 July, Suyash Singh, chief executive of GalaxEye, said the company is confident of scaling $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2029.

"Technically, the three government-operated surveillance satellite networks should serve as a valuable support layer for India's private satellite service providers. However, surveillance satellites are not a one-size-fits-all solution-for instance, any country seeking optimized multi-sensor satellite observation data would require satellites to pass over specific regions, which in turn necessitates appropriately configured constellations and denser satellite deployments for consistent coverage," Singh said.

GalaxEye is yet to win a foreign government contract. On 3 May, prime minister Narendra Modi hailed the company's now-failed satellite as "a major achievement in our space journey", and the "largest privately-built satellite in India".

Sharma and Singh acknowledged that India's planned spy satellite networks do not offer the frequency of top US satellite constellations. However, this could change soon; by 2029, Isro is expected to launch SBS-3 of 52 satellites. That could, in turn, help India's private surveillance satellite operators showcase as proof of India's ability to offer high-quality space data to paying customers around the world.

In September 2024, Pixxel was selected as one of eight suppliers of high-resolution satellite data for climate change and biodiversity monitoring via Nasa. This preceded its second US deal with National Reconnaissance Office on 5 May of unspecified amount. In March, Pixxel also won a deal with Saudi Arabia's sovereign satellite operator, Neo Space Group. It also has a $125-million contract in India to build its first public-private partnership satellite constellation. Queries emailed to a Pixxel spokesperson went unanswered.

Industry veterans agree that India's centrally owned surveillance satellites could push India's private satellite services operators to generate up to $8 billion in annual revenue by 2033, as per In-Space's projections from three years ago. Messages sent to Pawan Goenka, chairman of In-Space, went unanswered.

Shailender Arya, senior advisor at strategic advisory firm The Asia Group, said that the launch of the EOS-5 satellite by Isro on 4 September may offer an opportune moment for India's private sector to accelerate its push for government-sector clients worldwide.

"India's own private constellation via EO-PPP is meant for its own defence-grade usage. Though yet to reach highest fidelity, India's ability to use its own satellites for its own defence-grade use cases will offer a strong base for the private sector to build upon its capabilities.

Looking ahead, while Isro directly may not field surveillance data as a business from other countries, Indian private operators will gain from such opportunities," Arya added.Disclaimer Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from MINT. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at contentservices@htdigital.in