India's GalaxEye raises $4.8M to build world-first OptoSAR satellite
What's the deal? IIT Madras-incubated space-tech startup GalaxEye has raised $4.8 million to build its indigenous OptoSAR satellite, which combines optical cameras with radar to deliver Earth imagery day and night and in difficult weather. The company aims to deploy 30 satellites by 2030.
What's the endgame? The technology fuses bands from the visible spectrum with radar — covering microwave and radio wave ranges — to generate optical-grade imagery through night and heavy cloud. Patented in India and the US, chief executive officer Suyash Singh calls it a global first: "This is the technology that has not been tried around the globe."
How it started: The idea took shape after Singh, working in R&D at TCSDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, was tasked with quantifying forest fire damage in California and found optical images obscured by smoke while radar data resembled an unreadable "X-ray." His founding team of five had bonded at IIT Madras building Hyperloop pods for a SpaceXDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → competition, finishing in the top 10 as debutants.
Why now? In 2021, the team quit their jobs, rented a Chennai flat and turned the living room into a testbed. A regulatory roadblock forced a pivot from aircraft to drones, where they wrote custom motion compensation algorithms and validated the sensor across more than 400 flights.
What went wrong: On May 3, 2026, GalaxEye's 190kg satellite, Drishti, launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 and deployed into orbit. The team let it tumble for 18 to 20 days so solar panels could recharge depleted batteries while fixing deployment glitches. Then a geomagnetic solar storm fried its integrated circuits and cut contact; after a three-day wait for fail-safe reboots, GalaxEye and ISRO advisors confirmed the signal was permanently lost.
What's next? The mission still proved the design: 80 to 85% of onboard systems were flight-validated, and commercial capacity is pre-booked through next April. GalaxEye began work on Mission Drishti Generation-II by June 10, anticipating a 20-to-24-month development cycle.
To protect quality and timeline, the startup has shifted to an integrated in-house model — acquiring satellite bus developer StarOpsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and setting up a large facility outside Bengaluru. "Let's control our own destiny. Let it not be controlled by a supplier," Singh said.
The signal: A single satellite revisits a location once every seven to 10 days, but commercial, agricultural, and defence customers need real-time responsiveness. GalaxEye's 30-satellite target reflects a race to build high-cadence Earth observation constellations — and India's growing ambition to develop the underlying technology at home.
Image credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video
