Pixxel

Pixxel, a space-tech startup founded by BITS Pilani graduates Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, are building a constellation of nano-satellites to provide global, real-time and affordable satellite imagery. The startup which has tied up with companies like Maxar, Skymet Weather feels that the imagery will help in various sectors including oil & gas, agriculture and disaster management, etc. The company is the only startup from Asia to be selected for the first batch of 10 startups in Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles. Pixxel aims to launch their satellite by September/October 2020 and has plans to put up 12 microsatellites in 2021 and another 12 by mid-2022.

Pixxel is building a constellation of earth-imaging small satellites to provide an entirely new kind of dataset that today’s satellites aren’t capable of. The planned constellation of satellites will provide global coverage every 24 hours enabling organisations around the globe to detect, monitor and predict global phenomena in near real time. Once the data is beamed down, our cutting-edge AI platform will make extraction of actionable insights from this data blazingly fast and easy to use in domains such agriculture, oil & gas, climate change monitoring and forestry among others.

Founded in 2018, Pixxel aims to offer real-time, universally accessible, high-resolution satellite imagery for any location in the world. Its images are used for climate monitoring, crop yield prediction, urban planning, and disaster response, among other applications. Pixxel aims to launch a constellation of 24 Earth observation small satellites, which will provide real-time global coverage.

Pixxel, a private satellite-imaging company, will launch its first remote-sensing satellite on the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) workhorse rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in early 2021. For this, the Bengaluru-based firm has entered into an agreement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a Government of India company under the Department of Space. Earlier, the company’s first satellite was scheduled to be launched towards the end of this year on a Russian Soyuz rocket. The agreement with NSIL is one of its kind and one of the first since the setting up of IN-SPACe, the authorisation and regulatory body under the Department of Space (DoS) to enable private players undertaking space activities in India.

Founded in 2019 by then 21-year-olds, Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, Pixxel, is building a constellation of earth-imaging small satellites that will provide global coverage every 24 hours once fully deployed. The satellites will collect high-throughput information-rich data that will be analysed using artificial intelligence and machine-learning models. This would help make organisations more efficient in a plethora of sectors ranging from agriculture to urban monitoring.

The DoS and Pixxel will work in collaboration to enhance utilisation and maximise the benefits of space assets for India. This first-of-a-kind private earth-observation mission will help provide solutions to many pressing environmental and agricultural issues, among other things. “The Department of Space is happy to have one of India’s leading private space startups, Pixxel, on board this mission. We realise the potential that Pixxel’s earth-imaging satellites have to solve some pressing issues of our time and we are looking forward to a positive outcome from this launch," said DoS Secretary K Sivan. “With the establishment of IN-SPACe, we will also be partnering with other private players that can help India achieve more milestones in the future."

Pixxel signed an agreement with Silicon Valley-based in-space satellite transportation and infrastructure company Momentus Inc, to launch its second satellite into space. The launch is scheduled for 2021 on top of a SpaceX Falcon-9 to SSO orbit (Sun-synchronous orbit), a particular kind of polar orbit. Momentus has gained significant traction since its founding in 2017. It has attracted dozens of customers ranging from private commercial space companies to the likes of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and US space agency NASA. It has formed important industry partnerships, most notably with Elon Musk's SpaceX.

The plan is to achieve the mission of building and launching a constellation of the world’s most advanced earth imaging satellites that can beam down data at a level of detail that hasn’t been attempted before. Once the first satellite is done and perfected, we will develop newer satellites rapidly within the gap of 3- 6 months. By the end of 2022, Pixxel’s first constellation will be complete which will keep on expanding depending on customers’ needs.