ISRO facilitates opportunities to space tech startups

ISRO is empowering small startups by providing them opportunities to emerge by embracing their innovative ideas and disrupting the conventional methods being used.

ISRO facilitates opportunities to space tech startups

In a critical lift for private ventures working in the space area, the nation's public space organization has marked associations with two tech new companies to help and guide them. The department of Space (DoS), signed a non-disclosure agreement with IIT-Madras startup Agnikul Cosmos which is the maker of launch vehicle making it the first company to sign such a pact with Indian Space Organisation (ISRO) under the recently proposed Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Center (IN-SPACe), a body set up to empower private players to embrace space exercises in India.

The chairman of ISRO, K Sivan says that they are encouraging new startups like Agnikul to transverse to disruptive tech and break free from conventional methods of manufacturing launch vehicles. The CEO, Srinath Ravichandran also supported this view and added that this would enable the startup to accomplish early launch. Besides, it would also assist them to lessen the number of iterations to reach their goal.

Agnikul is constructing Agnibaan, a rocket capable of carrying up to 100kg of payload to low Earth's Orbit to 700km with a plug-and-play engine configuration. It would hopefully be launched by 2022.

New Space India Limited (NSIL) which is a government entity under DOS signed a pact with Pixxel, which is a satellite-imaging startup, it would assist Pixxel’s remote sensing satellite on an ISRO PSLV rocket in 2021. The CEO of Pixxel, Awais Ahmed said that they are extremely ecstatic and proud with the news that India’s first commercial private satellite would launch on an Indian rocket.

Pixxel is constructing a constellation of Earth imaging small satellites with an ambition of providing global coverage with every 24 hours. It would gather the information that would be analyzed using AI and ML models to aid organizations across various sectors.