TIWN
New Delhi, March 20 (TIWN) Hoping that the country would soon become a manufacturing hub of space assets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in December last year that the decision to unlock India's potential in the space sector has heralded a new age of public-private partnership.
The government opened up the space sector in June last year and created the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) that is working as a link between the ISRO and private companies who wants to participate in space-related activities or use India's space resources. While homegrown private earth imaging company Pixxel has closed $7.3 million (nearly Rs 53 crore) seed round and is working on two satellites to send to space this year, the Department of Space (DoS) has signed a pact with Chennai-based small rocket company Agnikul Cosmos to access the facilities and technical expertise available at the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) centres.
According to Awais Ahmed, Founder and CEO, Pixxel, with the radical liberalisation of space reforms, the government is providing growing impetus to spacetech startups like Pixxel. "Pixxel's rich satellite imagery will help tackle multiple issues across sectors like agriculture, environment, natural disasters, urban monitoring etc. that the government itself will be a beneficiary of. In addition to the high-quality imagery our satellite will provide, we are also building a platform for customers to analyse this data for various purposes, enabling them to become self-reliant," the 23-year-old entrepreneur told IANS.
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