Space Wrap: A sensational month for the Indian private sector
May was a blockbuster month for Indian space startups as they made a significant impact not only in India but also across the globe.
Bengaluru-based space startup GalaxEye has successfully launched Mission Drishti, the world’s first OptoSAR satellite aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, California.
India’s largest privately developed Earth observation satellite, Mission Drishti is a dual-use machine supporting use cases in defence, agriculture, disaster management, maritime monitoring and infrastructure planning.
The satellite is expected to complement India’s broader initiatives, including the active 29 Earth observation satellites outlined in ISRO’s recent annual report. A few days after the successful launch, GalaxEye said that contact with the satellite was firmly established.
This was followed by another Bengaluru space launch, Pixxel, which won a contract from the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for advanced commercial remote sensing capabilities.
This contract was awarded by NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office under the Strategic Commercial Enhancements Commercial Solutions Opening in support of the US Government’s efforts to evaluate and integrate emerging commercial hyperspectral data sources into the agency’s expanding remote sensing architecture.
The startup has also entered into a strategic partnership with Sarvam to develop and build India’s first data center orbital satellite – Pathfinder, a 200 kg satellite, is expected to reach orbit as early as Q4 2026.
As part of the partnership, Pixxel will design, build, launch and operate the satellite, and Sarvam will provide the AI backbone to handle training and inference directly in orbit, with full stack language models running on board the satellite. The Pathfinder satellite will be developed at Gigapixxel, Pixxel’s upcoming facility.
Nine Indian space technology companies: Astrogate Labs, Astrobase Space Technologies, VyomIC, Suhora, Kepler Aerospace Ltd, Hyspace Technologies, TakeMe2Space, Jarbits Pvt Ltd and Dhruva Space attended the Space Meetings Veneto 2026 in Venice, Italy and several partnership and collaboration announcements emerged from the visit.
Karnataka-based Astrobase Space Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Impulso Space to support customer access and explore launch opportunities through integrated mission management and launch service networks.
Kepler Aerospace signed a framework agreement with Apogeo Space to expand its global Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) infrastructure and strengthen satellite cooperation between India and Europe, while VyomIC showcased its range of technologies during the event and announced a strategic collaboration aimed at building next-generation navigation and resilient infrastructure technologies.
Back home, Skyroot Aerospace has raised $60 million in a $1.1 billion round to become India’s first space unicorn.
The Hyderabad-based startup said the capital will go towards expanding the Vikram-1 launch.
India’s first privately built orbital rocket Vikram-1 is scheduled to be launched later this year from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota.
The company said the capital will go towards increasing the launch cadence of Vikram-1, expanding production and development of Vikram-2 – a one-tonne vehicle with an advanced cryogenic upper stage.
AnduraX, an Andhra Pradesh-based space startup developing India’s first private Reusable Reentry Vehicle, said it will conduct a high-altitude balloon drop test in the first week of June 2026. The test will release an experimental vehicle from conditions close to the stratosphere.
ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) and Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER), an autonomous research and development laboratory under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), have signed an MoU to design and develop state-of-the-art high performance systems using indigenous semiconductor technologies for exploratory deep space observation.
Key objectives of this partnership include joint research and development through joint projects focused on deployable solutions by leveraging combined expertise in building high-power amplifier technologies for Deep Space Communications. In addition, it will also focus on indigenous semiconductor technologies using indigenous highly integrated compact gallium nitride (GaN) technologies from DRDO’s Gallium Arsenide Enabling Technology Centre.
Further, to encourage private participation in the space sector, India’s National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe) has invited private Indian industry to participate in an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the transfer of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) technology to an Indian private entity.
IN-SPACe, which is the single window agency for all private sector space sector activities in the country, said it has taken the initiative to transfer PSLV technologies for end-to-end realization, operation and commercialization of the launch vehicle by suitable private Indian industry.
It said that to ensure seamless technology absorption, ISRO will provide infrastructural and manual support for 30 months or till realization and launch of two PSLV vehicles by the selected party or whichever is earlier. This PSLV technology transfer is limited to private Indian entities only.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent foreign visit at the intergovernmental level, MoUs were signed between ISRO and the Norwegian Space Agency on cooperation in peaceful uses of space.
In Italy, it was also agreed to strengthen partnerships in Earth observation, heliophysics and space exploration with focused thematic engagement and to explore cooperation in space access and protection of space infrastructures between ISRO and the Italian Space Agency.
hemanth.cs@thehindu.co.in
Published – 29 May 2026 10:00 AM IST