ISRO's PSLV Launching SpaceTech Startup Pixxel's Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite on Saturday

This month will be in the name of space Technology startups in the country as after Skyroot's Vikram S Rocket launched, an another Spacetech startup Pixxel is set to launch its third hyperspectral satellite Anand on ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from Sriharikota Spaceport on Saturday। Its Alva Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO) will launch PSLV-C54 (PSLV-C54 ) with Oceansat-3 and 8 nano satellites ( on 26 November ) Oceansat-3 and 8 nano satellites. 

Anand is a hyperspectral microsatellite weighing less than 15 kg। But there are more than 150 wavelengths, which will enable it to capture images of the Earth in more detail than today's non-hyperspectral satellites, Whose wavelength does not exceed 10। Anand hyperspectral microsatellites will monitor the paddle of the earth.

An official statement from Pixxel said on Monday that photographs taken from the satellite were used to detect insect outbreaks, wildfires, Can be done to identify soil depletion and oil splatter। Pixxel founder and CEO Anas Ahmed said on Twitter, 'Delay of more than 18 months, After testing again several times and more than two years of hard work by the team, we are finally launching this week."

More than two years in the making and made with a lot of dedication and effort, the team can’t wait for the satellite to finally go to space and beam down some amazing #hyperspectral data. The countdown has begun! pic.twitter.com/mVx0iI8M08

— Pixxel (@PixxelSpace) November 22, 2022

Notably, Pixxel is the first Indian company to launch a commercial satellite ( commercial satellite ) Shakuntla using Elon Musk's SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket in April. The company said Pixxel's hyperspectral satellites are unique in their ability to provide hundreds of bands of information with global coverage at very high frequencies, which gives them disaster relief, agricultural monitoring, making it ideal for energy monitoring and urban planning applications.

More launches by the end of 2024 could enable Pixxel to offer 24-hour coverage and take it closer to creating a constellation of at least 20 satellites that can relay high-resolution earth imagery, which can be used to detect pest infestation, forest fires, soil stress, oil spill and more.

Earlier in April this year, IT giant Accenture, through its venture capital firm arm, Accenture Ventures, made a strategic investment in Pixxel. 

Founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal in 2019, Pixxel raised $25 million in Series A funding from investors such as Radical Ventures, Lightspeed, Blume Ventures and others, as the countdown started for a series of launches with commercial potential

Accenture Invests in Satellite Tech Startup Pixxel To Offer AI-powered Solutions on Climate Issues

Accenture, through its venture capital firm arm, Accenture Ventures, has announced today that it has made a strategic investment in Bengaluru-based space/satellite technology company, Pixxel, which has emerged as a leader in cutting-edge earth imaging technology since it was founded in 2018.

With Accenture Ventures, Accenture partners and invests in growth stage Deep-tech B2B startups to deliver innovation to its clients.

To date, Pixxel has raised a total of $33 million in funding to date. Based in Bangalore with a presence in Los Angeles, Pixxel is building the world’s highest resolution hyperspectral imaging satellite constellation in order to offer industry AI-powered insights that discover, solve, and predict climate issues at a fraction of the cost of traditional satellites.

Pixxel had earlier signed an MoU with Indian space agency ISRO's commercial arm, NSIL, to launch the its first remote-sensing satellite and India's first private remote-sensing satellite on an ISRO PSLV rocket in early 2021 however the launch with ISRO didn't take off but the startup managed to launch its first satellite, part of its eventual 36-satellite planned satellite-constellation, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission, in April this year.

With funding from Accenture, Pixxel will now join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program by Accenture focused on investing in companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. In addition to funding, Project Spotlight connects emerging technology software startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps, and offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.

Pixxel’s satellites can capture images at hundreds of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum and reveal key data about the health of our planet that is invisible to other satellites. 

Pixxel’s planned constellation of hyperspectral satellites will reshape how businesses across agriculture, defense, mining, environmental, and other critical industries make decisions on a global level to reduce their environmental impact. The data from Pixxel’s satellites provides 8X more information and 50X better resolution than existing in-market options.

Pixxel’s first commercial phase satellites are scheduled to be launched in early 2023 along with the commercial sale of its data. With six satellites flown in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) around a 550 km altitude, Pixxel’s hyperspectral constellation will be able to cover any point on the globe every 48 hours. With even more satellites scheduled to launch in late 2023, Pixxel will achieve daily global coverage by early 2024. The learnings from the data beamed down by this constellation will provide a global scale perspective of planetary-scale ecosystems and biospheres that will be used to create an AI-informed analysis platform and a digital twin of the earth.

Interestingly, Pixxel was one of the very few finalists in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2017 and then in 2022 launched its own satellites as part of SpaceX’s fourth dedicated rideshare mission. The team (now Pixxel) was one of the 20 finalists out of the 2500 that had applied globally for the competition, and had presented a working Hyperloop pod prototype to Elon Musk at the SpaceX headquarters in LA.

Started in late 2018, by BITS Pilani graduates Kshitij Khandelwal and Awais Ahmed, Pixxel was Asia's only space startup to qualify for the 2019 Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles

ISRO's Commercial Arm NSIL to Launch "India’s 1st Private" Remote Sensing Satellite

Representative

Bengaluru-based space technology startup Pixxel has entered into an agreement with ISRO's newly established commercial arm, NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL), also a Government of India company under the Department of Space (DoS), to launch the startup’s first remote-sensing satellite and India's first private remote-sensing satellite on an ISRO PSLV rocket in early 2021.

DoS and Pixxel will collaborate to enhance utilization and maximize the benefits of space assets for India. 

Though IRS-1A was India's first of the series of indigenous state-of-art operating remote sensing satellites that were launched in 1988. Pixxel's satellite will be India's first private remote-sensing satellite to be launched by Indian space agency ISRO. The ISRO-Pixxel agreement comes after recently established IN-SPACe, the authorization and regulatory body under the Department of Space (DoS) for enabling private players including startups to undertake space activities in India.

K.Sivan, Secretary of DoS, said - 

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.

"This first-of-a-kind private earth-observation mission will help provide solutions to many pressing environmental and agricultural issues among others and help make the world a better and more sustainable place," Pixxel said in a media statement.

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 analyzed using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning models to help make organizations more efficient in a plethora of sectors ranging from agriculture to urban monitoring among others.

Awais Ahmed, CEO, Pixxel, said "We are elated with the fact that India’s first commercial private satellite will now launch on an Indian rocket. This is not only a proud moment for us as an organisation but also as citizens to work with our nation’s capabilities."

Earlier in November last year, Pixxel had also inked an agreement with Italian firm Leaf Space for launching the first of its 24 earth imagery satellites, which was scheduled in July this year. 

Started by BITS Pilani alumni, Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, in February 2019, Pixxel was Asia's only Space Startup to qualify for the 2019 Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles.

Bengaluru's Space Tech Startup Pixxel ties with Italy's Leaf Space for its 1st Imagery Satellite

Bengaluru headquartered space technology startup Pixxel on Thursday said it has signed an agreement with Italian firm Leaf Space for launching the first of its 24 earth imagery satellites in July next year.

Through this agreement, Leaf Space will provide the support service up to one pass per orbit to the satellite in sun-synchronous orbit. The agreement also facilitates future mission support for Pixxel's planned constellation.

Pixxel's constellation of nano-satellites will be delivered into orbit as passengers on other rocket launch missions. The images gathered by these nano-satellites provide up-to-date information relevant to climate monitoring, crop yield prediction, urban planning, and disaster response.

"We are very excited to partner with Leaf Space for the ground segment support to our first satellite. This is an exciting step forward for our team as we ready for our first launch next year," Pixxel CEO Awais Ahmed said in a statement.

Pixxel and Leaf Space teams sigining service agreement for the ground segment support of the Pixxel's first mission

In a statement, Leaf Space CEO Jonata Puglia said,"It is very satisfying for us at Leaf Space to be the primary player for the ground segment of Pixxel's mission". Based out of Lomazzo in Italy, Leaf Space is creating satellite telecommunications as-a-service, in order to assist clients with their satellite operations by managing and procuring the entire ground segment system through a complete set of services, including time-shared access to ground, customize telecommunication solutions, ground station procurement, consultancy and backup services.

Uplink and downlink service for the mission will be provided using VHF, UHF and S-Band frequencies. The satellite is set to be launched on a Soyuz rocket in July 2020.

"Over the course of the next three years, we plan to deploy the first phase of our constellation consisting of 24 satellites to provide daily coverage. As we focus on development of the satellite constellation in the coming years, we will continue to partner with global ground station providers like Leaf Space to receive this data," Pixxel CTO Kshitij Khandelwal said.

The one of its kind space tech startup in India aims to create a one-stop solution for real-time, universally accessible, high-resolution information about any location on the globe.

Founded in 2018, Pixxel is aiming to build a constellation of 24 earth imaging small satellites that will provide global coverage every 24 hours.

Notably, Pixxel has signed a launch contract with GK Launch Services for its first tech demo mission to be launched in 2020 on GK-operated Soyuz-2 mission. The contract was arranged with the support of Precious Payload’s launch booking platform. Soyuz is a series of Russian spacecraft initiallu designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau in the 1960s that remains in service today.

In July this year, Pixxel had raised pre-seed round of funding from growX Ventures and other prominent angels such as Raju Reddy, Dileep Nath, Pawan Sarda, and others.

Pixxel, which is an alumnus of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator, 2019, also aims to work for Indian agriculture sector, that accounts for 18% of India’s GDP, by using Artificial Intelligence (AI), with its universally accessible, high-resolution information received from its constellations of ultra-small, ultra-cheap, regularly updated nanosatellites.

Few weeks back, Maharashtra state government has unveiled its plans of modernizing and making exhaustive use of drone and satellite images, in order to alleviate agricultural hazards and provide farmers and policymakers, the authority the useful analyzed information to plan their moves accordingly. Maharashtra will be employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) along with the satellite images, based on mining data together from the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) in Hyderabad.

~ With Inputs from PTI

Satellite Imagery Startup Pixxel Raises Funding from growX Ventures, Others

Bangalore headquartered spacetech startup Pixxel, which is working towards creating India's first constellation of nano-satellites, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round of funding from growX Ventures and other prominent angels such as Raju Reddy, Dileep Nath, Pawan Sarda, and others.

Pixxel makes satellite imagery useful by building a constellation of nanosatellites to provide global, real-time and affordable satellite imagery and the tools to analyse that data.

Pixxel is currently manufacturing the first of their satellites, which will be launch-ready by the end of the year and will be put in orbit early next year. The seed round of funding will be used to manufacture the prototype satellite.

“Our vision when we started was to build a world-beating company out of India that would operate at the cutting edge of space technology and contribute meaningfully towards space exploration,” the company said.

Founded in late 2018, by BITS Pilani alumni - Kshitij Khandelwal and Awais Ahmed, Pixxel is building a constellation of remote sensing satellites that will launch into space and beam down data that will be used to map minerals, water, and other resources on the moon, Mars, and even the asteroid belt.

The team behind Pixxel is serial creators, as the same team were the only Indian and one of the two Asian finalist teams at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2017. The team were one of the 20 finalists out of the 2500 that had applied globally for the competition, and had presented a working Hyperloop pod prototype to Elon Musk at the SpaceX headquarters in LA.

Sheetal Bahl, Managing Partner at growX Ventures, said in a press statement, "Awais and Kshitij are the youngest, and among the most impressive founders we have invested in. They are envisioning the creation of a solution to capture high-resolution information of every location on the planet."

“This will enable them to monitor ever-changing situations that influence the environment, the economy, the security of nations, and help governments and organisations make smarter day-to-day operational decisions,” Sheetal said.