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With so many satellites crowding Earth’s orbital space, increasingly resembling congested highways, Bengaluru-based startup Digantara decided to create a ‘Google Maps for space’.
Digantara (Sanskrit for outer space or any faraway land) was founded in 2018 by college students Anirudh Sharma, Rahul Rawat and Tanveer Ahmed as part of their work on satellites for a few South America-based space agencies.
They describe Digantara as a “space situational awareness company”. “We work towards tracking every single activity that happens in Earth’s orbit, and help with navigating space,” says Sharma.
Using a mix of proprietary satellites, ground-based sensors and advanced analytics, Digantara tracks, monitors and predicts the movement of objects in Earth’s orbit. This data is converted into actionable insights through the company’s software platforms.
Growing market
For commercial satellite operators, Digantara offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to simplify satellite operations, orbital navigation, and risk assessment.
Its flagship product, ‘flight dynamics as a service’, enables precise satellite manoeuvring, fuel optimisation, and collision avoidance.
Additionally, its insurance risk analysis tool helps underwriters evaluate hazards in specific orbital regions, fostering trust and transparency in a rapidly evolving market, Sharma says.
“Commercial customers rely on us to integrate our software into their spacecraft and provide operational support. It’s a long-term partnership of 2–5 years,” he says.
Defence and other government clients look for bespoke solutions, he says, including custom-built sensors and optical payloads for surveillance, and platforms like the Space Threat Assessment and Response Suite (STARS) to track adversarial satellite movements and space threats.
The company’s electro-optical sensors are used to track manmade or natural objects in earth’s orbit. Digantara will use data from these sensors, and others collected from government and commercial sources to build its ‘libraries’ to offer analytics services.
R&D centre
Its newly opened R&D centre in Bengaluru has a controlled environment for satellite assembly and a mission control centre to manage satellite integration, payload development and real-time space operations. The company is also adapting its optical payloads for use in surveillance drones. It has signed a contract to supply optical sensors to Space Machines Company, an Australian in-space service provider, under the MAITRI (mission for Australia-India technology, research and innovation) initiative, supported by a A$8.5 million grant from the Australian government.
Despite regulatory hurdles in India’s nascent private space sector, Digantara has attracted over 25 commercial clients globally. It targets raising $45–50 million to scale up operations and launch 40 satellites in the next few years.
“Deep-tech ventures like ours require time and resources to mature. However, we’re seeing strong interest from customers and investors alike. The growing demand for space safety solutions is a clear signal of the industry’s potential,” Sharma says.
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