On August 13, 2026, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) signed a formal agreement under a public-private partnership (PPP) framework with Allied Orbits Private Limited—a consortium led by PixxelSpace India alongside Dhruva Space, PierSight Space, and SatSure Analytics India.
Under the contract, the consortium will invest more than ₹1,200 crore to design, build, own, and operate a 12-satellite Earth observation (EO) constellation scheduled to become fully operational by 2029.
The initiative marks India’s first fully private national Earth observation network, shifting sovereign infrastructure delivery from state-run space assets to commercial consortium procurement.
Multi-Sensor Payload Specifications and Technical Architecture
The 12-satellite constellation integrates four distinct sensor modalities engineered to supply Analysis Ready Data (ARD) for civil, commercial, and national security applications. The technical distribution of spacecraft and sensor payloads includes:
- Five ultra-high-resolution optical satellites featuring four spectral bands for precision urban mapping and infrastructure monitoring.
- Three multispectral satellites operating across eight spectral bands for regional environmental and agricultural tracking.
- Two hyperspectral optical satellites incorporating 250 spectral bands to capture chemical and atmospheric signatures, expanding upon hardware capabilities demonstrated on Pixxel’s Firefly hyperspectral smallsat platform.
- Two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites operating in X-band to enable day-and-night, all-weather imaging across land and maritime zones.
All satellites will be manufactured domestically within India and operated through indigenous ground control facilities.
National Procurement Framework and Commercial Data Window
The program addresses institutional requirements by establishing a framework for Indian government user ministries to place tasking orders against defined resolution, revisit, and reliability metrics. Under proposed procurement structures, user agencies maintain independent tasking budgets while IN-SPACe aggregates operational specifications and manages independent validation.
The private consortium framework builds upon established domestic manufacturing capabilities, extending flight heritage previously established during ISRO’s PSLV-C54 mission deploying Dhruva Space and Pixxel payloads.
Manufacturing Schedule and Launch Roadmap
The consortium will execute satellite assembly, integration, and testing across domestic cleanroom facilities over a multi-year deployment schedule. Orbital insertions will utilize domestic Indian launch vehicles—leveraging either commercial ISRO launch services or emerging private launch providers—to achieve full constellation operational capability by 2029.
