Indian spacetech startup, Pixxel has inaugurated its first Spacecraft Manufacturing Facility, in the presence of ISRO Chairman, S Somanath, and other industry stakeholders and investors.
Known as one of the leaders in innovative hyperspectral earth-imaging technology, the five-year-old company’s new facility spans more than 30,000 sq ft, which consolidates all satellite manufacturing services, providing a comprehensive Spacecraft Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) facility under one roof.
The facility will ensure a streamlined production process from concept to launch — providing a space for Pixxel’s satellites to be designed from scratch, manufactured, integrated, and tested for launch conditions before being shipped to the launch site.
Awais Ahmed, CEO, Pixxel says, “By increasing our capacity to build more satellites, we will deliver even more critical data to our customers faster so they can make informed decisions and address the needs of key industries such as agriculture, energy, forestry, and environmental monitoring.”
With this facility, Pixxel aims to establish a robust infrastructure for large-scale satellite manufacturing, adapt to the dynamic needs of customers, and set a new benchmark for efficiency and innovation.
At full capacity, the facility is equipped to handle more than twenty satellites simultaneously that can be turned around within a timeframe of six months, making a total capacity of forty large satellites per year possible.
The space is uniquely designed, with two modern clean rooms of ISO Class 7 and ISO Class 8 that safeguard against contaminants that could impair satellite functionality during the satellite assembly and integration process.
Additionally, it also houses labs for advanced camera integration, electronics R&D, and electrical assembly; along with a mechanical workshop, a mission control room, and an office space that can accommodate more than 200 employees.
With a commitment to sustainability, Pixxel’s facility will feature a wastewater treatment plant to help conserve water and reduce water dependency as well as smart heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to further enhance energy efficiency and minimize carbon footprint.
ISRO also proudly unveiled “MegaPixxel,” its first state-of-the-art Spacecraft Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) facility in Bengaluru. The 30,000 sq ft facility, inaugurated by the esteemed Chairman of ISRO, Shri S Somanath, marks a significant milestone in the organization’s endeavour to build a comprehensive health monitoring system for our planet.
Future Launch Missions
With the mission to become the health monitor for planet Earth, Pixxel has plans to launch in total 24 satellites by 2026, 6 in 2024 and 18 in 2025. Phase one of both Firefly and Honeybee constellations will go up in 2024. By 2025, phase two of the constellations is scheduled to launch. There will be a total of 18 Fireflies and six Honeybees.
Fireflies is a constellation of satellites that will have high-resolution cameras and higher collection capacity and will remain in Space for ten years. Honeybees is another constellation of satellites that will increase the resolution of images and the wavelength range of Pixxel’s satellites.
The constellation will aim to provide global coverage every 24 hours and help detect, monitor, and predict global phenomena across agriculture, mining, environment, and energy use cases. Pixxel already has three hyperspectral satellites in Space with a lifespan of three years including Anand and Shakuntala.
“We are planning to launch the world’s first hyperspectral satellite constellation of 24 more satellites starting 2024 and provide us with global coverage every day, which means we can cover every part of the globe daily,” adds Ahmed.
Their biggest use cases include agriculture fertilizer makers (40%), resources such as oil and gas, mining (30%) and the remaining 30% for defence and other purposes.
Last year Pixxel won a multi-crore grant from iDEX (Innovation for Defence Excellence) for the Mission DefSpace Challenge under iDEX Prime (Space), to manufacture miniaturized multi-payload satellites for the Indian Air Force.
Also, leveraging the indigenous technology and expertise Pixxel is planning to manufacture small satellites for the Indian defense sector from their manufacturing unit.
This Year, Pixxel is also going to launch Aurora, its geospatial analytics platform, to extract insights from earth observation data, provided by its hyperspectral imaging satellites.
Aurora is going to use a multidimensional visualization of the satellite data to generate real-time assessments, from detecting the onset of crop diseases, and soil health to mapping oil and gas leaks globally.
