New Delhi, 03 May (H.S.):

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lauded the launch of Bengaluru‑based space‑tech startup GalaxEye’s “Mission Drishti” as a major leap forward in India’s space ambitions. In an official statement, he said:

“Mission Drishti by GalaxEye marks a major achievement in our space journey. The successful launch of the world’s first OptoSAR satellite and the largest privately‑built satellite in India is a testament to our youth’s passion for innovation and nation‑building. Heartiest congratulations and best wishes to the founders and the entire team of GalaxEye.”

Mission Drishti: A world‑first OptoSAR satellite

Developed by GalaxEye Space, a Bengaluru‑based startup founded in 2021 by a team of IIT Madras engineers, Mission Drishti carries the world’s first OptoSAR imaging satellite—a hybrid system that synchronously fuses optical imagery and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on a single platform. The 160‑kilogram satellite, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon‑9 rocket from California’s SLC‑4E launch site, marks a significant technological leap in Earth‑observation capabilities.

GalaxEye’s proprietary SyncFused OptoSAR architecture combines multispectral optical sensors with SAR imaging, enabling high‑resolution, all‑weather, day‑and‑night monitoring of the Earth’s surface. This removes the usual limitations of optical satellites, which cannot see through clouds or at night, while also enhancing the clarity of radar‑based imagery. The satellite can deliver analysis‑ready data almost immediately after capture, thanks to on‑board artificial‑intelligence‑enabled processing hardware, including Nvidia Jetson Orin computing systems.

India’s largest privately‑built satellite

The Drishti satellite is also notable for being the largest satellite so far built by a private Indian company, underscoring the rapid growth of India’s private space ecosystem. The spacecraft, roughly one cubic metre in size and equipped with a deployable three‑and‑a‑half‑metre‑long antenna, is designed to offer a global revisit time of seven to ten days, providing frequent, updated imagery for a wide range of applications.

Those applications include border surveillance, defence and security monitoring, disaster management, agricultural assessment, infrastructure and utilities monitoring, and risk evaluations for the financial and insurance sectors.

The data from Drishti will support faster decision‑making for governments, corporations, and disaster‑response agencies, offering a reliable, high‑fidelity‑view of the planet even during adverse weather conditions.

A stepping stone from earlier success

GalaxEye’s earlier technology demonstrator, the GLX‑SQ payload, flew aboard ISRO’s PSLV Orbital Experiment Module (POEM) platform in December 2024. The payload successfully tested the SyncFusion Imaging System in orbit, including in the harsh radiation environment of the South Atlantic Anomaly, validating the fusion of optical and SAR data in space. The success of that mission paved the way for Mission Drishti, now the first full‑scale multi‑sensor satellite of its kind in orbit.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar