Riding Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 to space, how a Made-in-Gujarat satellite will help India
On Thursday, a partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 4E in California at around midnight Indian time. This was the second of three launches completed by SpaceX within a 13-hour window on October 1, marking the company's third triple-header in just two and a half years. The first launch that day carried astronauts on NASA's Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station.
The second launch, Transporter-18, put 130 payloads into Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), including India's first commercial thermal-imaging satellite, TAPAS-1, developed by Ahmedabad-based space technology startup Satleo Labs. TAPAS-1, a CubeSat weighing 1.5 kg, will operate in a 500 km high orbit, capturing high-resolution thermal and temperature images of the planet.
The thermal imaging data can be used in various sectors, including agriculture, urban planning, disaster management, archaeology, geology, climate modeling, weather forecasting, and storm predictions. Satleo Labs has already secured letters of intent worth approximately $52 million, with 60% of the funding coming from companies outside India.
The company aims to launch TAPAS-2 by April-May 2024 and a more advanced constellation of 10-15 microsatellites, PYRO, by 2029. The Gujarat government has announced incentives for startups and private investors in the spacetech sector, becoming the first state in India to launch a dedicated policy for the industry.
Written by urgent.news from The Indian Express's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
