Imaging satellite built by Indo-German firm placed in orbit by SpaceX Falcon9

During the wee hours of Tuesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flying a mission 'Transporter-8', hurled an 80-kg imaging satellite into orbit above the earth. This moment marked a significant milestone for Indo-German firm Azista BST Aerospace, a joint venture between India's Azista Industries Pvt Ltd and Germany's Berlin Space Technologies GmbH. After the space sector reforms were rolled out in India, many private firms have launched small satellites, but this 80-kg imaging satellite from Azista is the heaviest yet from an Indian private firm.

"Azista started off by manufacturing satellite components and electronics for ISRO's Space Applications Centre(SAC) in Ahmedabad and then we decided to venture into building an entire satellite," Srinivas Reddy, Managing Director, Azista BST, told WION. He added that the Azista team combined their technical expertise in building sub-components, developing electronics, design, printed circuit boards etc. with the expertise of their German partner in developing onboard computers, and technology for satellite bus (shell), in order to execute this mission.

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Named 'AFR' (ABA First Runner), their maiden satellite is meant to be a technology demonstrator and will provide imaging services. "It hosts a wide-swath optical remote sensing payload with both panchromatic and multispectral imaging capabilities," the firm said. In a single image, the satellite will be capable of imaging a stretch of 70kms and that image will be of a 4.6m resolution, which means that it will have the capability to distinguish the objects that are 4.6m apart.

Queried about the users of the satellite data and the customers they serve, Srinavas Reddy told WION that their customers included those in the agriculture sector, banking (land survey, insurance) and even ocean monitoring. He added that their business model was to build and launch their own satellites and offer the data to customers from across sectors and they would even build satellites for customers and integrate customer payloads, as per the orders.According to the firm, they are already in the process of building their next set of satellites to demonstrate their versatile capability. Several of these satellites will be launched within the next 12-14 months, the firm added.

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"The satellite launched today will enable a variety of critical applications for civilian and defence purposes. This is also a big milestone for the Indian Space startup ecosystem as it takes our private industry into the next leap of International collaborations. This accomplishment marks a significant landmark for the Indian space industry in terms of streamlined production of satellites, great precision on supply chain management and timelines," Lt.Gen AK Bhatt (Retd), Director General, Indian Space Association(ISpa) said. ISpa is an industry body representing the private sector players in the Indian space ecosystem.

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