Pixxel, India’s first private earth imaging company announced their agreement with Leaf Space, a company delivering complete ground segment expertise for microsatellites. The announcement was made at the 70th International Astronautical Congress in Washington, DC, wherein Leaf Space will provide the ground segment support for the satellite to be launched in July 2020.
Through this partnership, Leaf Space will provide the support service up to one pass per orbit to the satellite in SSO (sun-synchronous orbit), demonstrating the capabilities of its mid-latitude distributed ground station network. 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, thanks to a contract inked in August this year.
The agreement also facilitates future mission support for Pixxel’s planned constellation thanks to the integration of the communication systems and interfaces, nonetheless, familiarizing the satellite operations team with Leaf Space services.
Commenting on the agreement, Awais Ahmed, CEO, Pixxel said “We are very excited to partner with Leaf Space for the ground segment support to our first satellite. We strongly believe that our combined expertise will result in smooth and timely delivery of highly accurate geospatial imagery to people all across the globe. This is an exciting step forward for our team as we ready for our first launch next year. Also, in our quest to be a partner in India’s progress through space technology, this partnership will be marked as the first milestone”
“We are eager to start supporting Pixxel’s ambitious remote sensing mission, as we see this program as potentially generating very valuable data for the new space market. It is very satisfying for us at Leaf Space to be the primary player for the ground segment of Pixxel’s mission and are looking forward to delivering our ground-breaking service to our customer, laying out the most favourable environment for future mission and constellation support,” said Jonata Puglia, CEO of Leaf Space.
Pixxel is aiming to build a constellation of earth imaging small satellites that will provide global coverage every 24 hours once it’s fully deployed. The satellites will collect data that will be accurately analyzed using artificial intelligence in order to predict effective solutions for existing environmental problems.
Pixxel is an Indian space startup based in Bengaluru, India. The company is building constellations of high-resolution earth imaging satellites to provide global imagery at a daily frequency to customers in a wide range of industries worldwide. Recently, Pixxel was the only Asian participant selected to be a part of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator, a first of its kind space focused accelerator where the company worked with space industry stalwarts such as NASA JPL, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin and Maxar among others. Pixxel’s first satellite is booked to launch in June 2020.
