Bengaluru-based spacetech startup GalaxEye Space Solutions is set to receive Rs 63.84 crore in financial support from the Indian government to develop a multisensor satellite capable of producing OptoSAR imagery at a resolution finer than 0.5 metres.

The Technology Development Board (TDB), under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), has signed an agreement with GalaxEye for the support under the government's Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund.

The project has a total approved cost of Rs 247.69 crore and aims to take the technology from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to TRL 9. The financial support will be provided through Optionally Convertible Debentures.

The government said the funding will help GalaxEye undertake further development, engineering, testing and validation as it moves the technology towards deployment.

How GalaxEye's OptoSAR technology works

At the centre of the project is OptoSAR, GalaxEye's approach to combining Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Electro-Optical (EO) imaging.

Optical imaging can provide detailed visual information about the Earth's surface, but its effectiveness can be affected by cloud cover and lighting conditions. SAR uses radar and can collect imagery through clouds and irrespective of daylight.

GalaxEye's proposed system seeks to fuse information from both sensors to provide a more continuous picture of the Earth across different weather and lighting conditions.

The proposed satellite is designed to provide imagery at a resolution finer than 0.5 metres. According to the government, potential applications include wide-area and long-range surveillance, human and vehicle detection, and target classification.

“The support from the Technology Development Board under the RDI Fund will enable us to accelerate the development and validation of our OptoSAR technology. By combining SAR and optical sensing, we are working towards an Earth-observation capability that can provide high-resolution information across a wider range of weather and lighting conditions. This partnership will be important in taking the technology towards TRL-9 and its subsequent deployment,” promoters of GalaxEye said.

From IIT Madras to Mission Drishti

GalaxEye was founded in 2021 by Suyash Singh, Denil Chawda, Pranit Mehta, Kishan Thakkar and Rakshit Bhatt, who were part of a team of engineers at IIT Madras.

The startup is developing Earth-observation systems that combine optical and radar sensing. Its first satellite, Mission Drishti, was launched on 3 May 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.

At the time of the launch, the Indian government described Mission Drishti as the world's first OptoSAR satellite and India's largest privately built satellite. According to GalaxEye, the spacecraft was designed to combine optical and SAR sensors on a single platform.

The mission later suffered a setback. In July, GalaxEye reported that communication with Drishti became intermittent during the final stage of its Launch and Early Orbit Phase before being lost.

The company linked the anomaly to radiation effects associated with a geomagnetic solar storm that were likely to have affected a critical onboard system, while noting that an investigation into the precise cause was still under way.

The satellite had completed a substantial part of its planned early-orbit activities and validated several spacecraft systems before communication was lost. It also said it planned to incorporate lessons from the mission into future spacecraft and target the launch of two more OptoSAR satellites within 24 months.

In September, GalaxEye announced that it had secured a US patent for technology that synchronises optical and radar sensors, allowing them to collect spatially and temporally aligned Earth-observation data from the same satellite

Government's Rs 1 lakh crore RDI programme

The GalaxEye agreement comes under the government's wider RDI Scheme, which is aimed at increasing private-sector participation in research and development and supporting the commercialisation of indigenous technologies.

The Union Cabinet approved the scheme on 1 July 2025 with an outlay of Rs 1 Lakh Crore over six years. It was formally launched on 3 November 2025.

The programme provides long-term financing to eligible technology companies through debt and equity instruments and is intended to support research-driven and deep-tech projects.

It operates through a two-tier structure. A Special Purpose Fund established within the Anusandhan National Research Foundation maintains the scheme's corpus and channels money through Second-Level Fund Managers.

TDB and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council have been designated as Second-Level Fund Managers under the programme.

As of July 2026, TDB had approved 22 projects with a combined project cost of Rs 4,744 crore and RDI Fund support of Rs 2,192 crore, according to the government.

“India’s space ecosystem is entering a phase where the ability to develop and deploy sophisticated technologies within the country will be increasingly important. The RDI Fund provides an important mechanism to support such technology-intensive efforts through the critical stages between advanced development and deployment. The agreement with GalaxEye reflects TDB’s focus on enabling indigenous capabilities in emerging spacetech and supporting their journey towards commercialisation,” TDB Secretary Rajesh Kumar Pathak said.

--

Written by Shouvik Sarkar