New Delhi: The Indian Air Force (IAF) may launch satellites acquired from space firm Pixxel by mid-2025, boosting its capabilities to maintain surveillance at the country's borders and beyond.
The IAF signed a contract with Bengaluru-based Pixxel Space, founded by young entrepreneurs Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal of BITS Pilani, while they were pursuing higher education.
"We should have that satellite in space before the end of 2025, but we are probably aiming for mid-2025," Ahmed said in an interaction with editors here.
He said Pixxel's task was to manufacture the satellite and hand it over to the IAF, which will operate the spacecraft.
"In the case of the Indian Air Force for iDEX, we are not concerned about what the operations are. The operations will mainly be to look at the borders, look at illegal testing, illegal growth and things like that. But we are not going to be operating the satellite," he said.
Innovations for Defense Excellence, an initiative of the Ministry of Defence, aims to create an ecosystem to foster innovation and technological development for the defense and aerospace sector through industry participation.
Pixxel has signed a contract with IAF under iDEX to supply miniaturized multiple payload satellites.
This contract will kick off Pixxel's efforts to develop small satellites of up to 150 kg for electro-optical, infrared, synthetic aperture radar and hyperspectral purposes.
Since its founding in 2019, Pixxel has raised $71 million in funding that the company believes is enough to cover the launch of its 24 satellites: six this year and 18 next year.
"We are talking about launching the six satellites, the six Fireflies at the end of this year and the Honeybees that we want to launch next year; all the infrastructure is paid for. So now we are just building the satellites," Ahmed said.
He said the idea was to make sure the revenue the company generated from the six satellites sustains it for years to come.
"The investment will be for acceleration and not for survival, which is a little different in the space," Ahmed said.
Pixel has also set its sights on cis-lunar space, the region between Earth and the orbit around the Moon.
Ahmed said the company would also like to place satellites in cyclo-lunar orbits to study asteroids for minerals and other precious resources that could be used to build settlements in space in the future.
The IAF signed a contract with Bengaluru-based Pixxel Space, founded by young entrepreneurs Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal of BITS Pilani, while they were pursuing higher education.
"We should have that satellite in space before the end of 2025, but we are probably aiming for mid-2025," Ahmed said in an interaction with editors here.
He said Pixxel's task was to manufacture the satellite and hand it over to the IAF, which will operate the spacecraft.
"In the case of the Indian Air Force for iDEX, we are not concerned about what the operations are. The operations will mainly be to look at the borders, look at illegal testing, illegal growth and things like that. But we are not going to be operating the satellite," he said.
Innovations for Defense Excellence, an initiative of the Ministry of Defence, aims to create an ecosystem to foster innovation and technological development for the defense and aerospace sector through industry participation.
Pixxel has signed a contract with IAF under iDEX to supply miniaturized multiple payload satellites.
This contract will kick off Pixxel's efforts to develop small satellites of up to 150 kg for electro-optical, infrared, synthetic aperture radar and hyperspectral purposes.
Since its founding in 2019, Pixxel has raised $71 million in funding that the company believes is enough to cover the launch of its 24 satellites: six this year and 18 next year.
"We are talking about launching the six satellites, the six Fireflies at the end of this year and the Honeybees that we want to launch next year; all the infrastructure is paid for. So now we are just building the satellites," Ahmed said.
He said the idea was to make sure the revenue the company generated from the six satellites sustains it for years to come.
"The investment will be for acceleration and not for survival, which is a little different in the space," Ahmed said.
Pixel has also set its sights on cis-lunar space, the region between Earth and the orbit around the Moon.
Ahmed said the company would also like to place satellites in cyclo-lunar orbits to study asteroids for minerals and other precious resources that could be used to build settlements in space in the future.
