Pixxel to launch India’s first private satellite network, eyes Rs 1.65 lakh crore market

Bengaluru: India's Pixxel is set to launch three of its six hyperspectral imaging satellites aboard a SpaceX rocket from California on Tuesday, the first such network in the country's nascent private space sector, Pixxel's chief told Reuters.

The satellites will be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 550 km, with the remaining three slated for deployment in the second quarter of the year.

The launch is scheduled to take place at the Vandenberg Space Force Base at around 10:45 am Pacific Time (1845 GMT) on Tuesday - just after midnight the next day in India - subject to final approvals.

Pixxel's founder and chief executive Awais Ahmed told Reuters that it plans to add 18 more spacecraft to the six it has already developed, eyeing a share of the satellite imaging market projected to reach Rs 1.65 lakh crore (approximately $19 billion) by 2029.

The launch is a milestone for India's nascent private space sector and for Google-backed Pixxel, a five-year-old startup.

It aims to use hyperspectral imaging -- a technology that captures highly detailed data across hundreds of light bands -- to serve industries such as agriculture, mining, environmental monitoring, and defence.

The company says its satellites can deliver insights to improve crop yields, track resources, monitor oil spills and country borders in much better details than current technology allows.

"The satellite imagery market today is around $4.3 billion, with analysis adding another $14 billion. By 2029, the market is projected to reach $19 billion. Hyperspectral imaging, which is new, could realistically capture $500 million to $1 billion of this, plus additional revenue from analysis," Ahmed said.

Ahmed said Pixxel has signed up around 65 clients, including Rio Tinto, British Petroleum, and India's Ministry of Agriculture, with some already paying for data from its demo satellites. Contracts are in place for future data from the Firefly constellation.

"For defence-use cases, conversations are happening predominantly in the US and India, and in other regions through resellers and partners. Usually, government agencies want to see things launched and working before committing to procurement," Ahmed, 27, said.

Pixxel expects to make first contact with the satellites about two-and-a-half hours after launch, with full commercial imaging capabilities expected by mid-March.

However, its expansion plans face stiff competition in a global satellite market dominated by the United States and China.

The US leads in commercial and government satellite launches, driven by private companies like SpaceX and government contracts, while China has emerged as a competitor with aggressive state-backed initiatives and a rapid expansion into low Earth orbit satellites.

India, despite its established spacefaring capabilities, holds only a 2 per cent share of the global commercial space market. The government is now banking on private players to increase that share, aiming to grow the country’s space sector from $8 billion to $44 billion by 2030.

Pixxel hopes to leapfrog these challenges with its Firefly constellation, which boasts a 5-meter resolution and a 40-km swathe width—outperforming competitors such as Finland's Kuva Space and San Francisco-based Orbital Sidekick, whose satellites typically have lower resolution and narrower coverage.

"If and once their commissioning is successful, they'll have more imaging capacity than ISRO in the hyperspectral band, which for the Indian industry is a watershed moment,” said Narayan Prasad, chief operations officer at Netherlands-based space industry marketplace Satsearch.