India’s First Private SSA Observatory to Monitor Space Activity to come Up in Uttarakhand

Digantara, a Bengaluru (Karnataka)-based space sector start-up, will establish India’s first private Space Situational Awareness (SSA) observatory in Garhwal, Uttarakhand, to track objects as small as 10 centimeters (cm) in size orbiting the Earth.

Highlights

• Digantara has signed an agreement with the Uttarakhand Government in this regard.
• This regional first-of-its-kind commercial SSA observatory will assist India in monitoring all space activity, including that of military satellites orbiting the region and space debris.
• The United States (US) is currently a dominating actor in monitoring space debris, with observatories in numerous locations and commercial companies contributing additional input from across the world.

• Digantara will be able to support its space-based sensors in their mission to monitor satellites and debris in orbits spanning from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) with the establishment of the observatory.
• Since there are no similar facilities between Australia and Southern Africa, the observatory will bridge a disparity in SSA observations in the region.
• It will minimize the risk of collisions between satellites and other spacecraft by providing more precise estimates of their location, speed, and trajectory.
• The observatory would also give India with indigenous monitoring capabilities over the subcontinent.

Note:

Digantara received USD 2.5 million in seed funding from Kalaari Capital in 2021 to develop and strengthen its capabilities.
In June 2022, Digantara launched the “world’s first commercial space-based space weather instrument,” “ROBI (ROBust Integrating proton fluence metre)” onboard the PSLV-CS53 Mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).