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  • Their First Satellite Went Silent. Now The Government Is Backing Their Next One: GalaxEye Gets ₹63.84 Cr From India’s RDI Fund

    Their First Satellite Went Silent. Now The Government Is Backing Their Next One: GalaxEye Gets ₹63.84 Cr From India’s RDI Fund

    Bengaluru-based GalaxEye has secured ₹63.84 crore from the Centre’s ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund to build a next-generation all-weather Earth-observation satellite.

    In May 2026, GalaxEye put Drishti into orbit. It was India’s first OptoSAR satellite, a 190 kg spacecraft that combines two kinds of eyes in one. Two months later, the company lost communication with it, and attributed the problem to radiation effects from a geomagnetic solar storm.

    For most early-stage startups, that would be the end of the story. For GalaxEye, it’s the middle.

    The deal

    On 25 September 2026, the Technology Development Board (TDB), under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), signed an agreement with GalaxEye Space Solutions to provide ₹63.84 crore under the RDI Fund.

    • Instrument: Optionally convertible debentures, not a grant
    • Total project cost: ₹247.69 crore, so the government is funding about a quarter of it
    • Goal: An indigenous multisensor satellite with OptoSAR imaging at resolution finer than 0.5 metres
    • Maturity jump: From Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, a demonstrated prototype, to TRL 9, an operationally proven system

    What is OptoSAR, in simple words?

    Most imaging satellites use one of two technologies:

    • Optical (electro-optical) cameras give sharp, photo-like images, but they can’t see through clouds or at night.
    • Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) works through clouds, rain and darkness, but its images are harder to read.

    GalaxEye’s OptoSAR fuses both on one satellite. The result is detailed imagery in almost any weather, day or night. According to the official release, applications include surveillance, detection of people and vehicles, and target classification. That matters in a country with a four-month monsoon and long borders.

    The team

    GalaxEye was founded in 2021 and incubated at IIT Madras. Its founders are Suyash Singh (Co-founder & CEO), Denil Chawda, Kishan Thakkar, Pranit Mehta and Rakshit Bhatt.

    The company said the TDB support “will enable us to accelerate the development and validation of our OptoSAR technology.”

    Why the government is doing this

    The RDI Fund is a ₹1 lakh crore scheme created to finance private-sector research and innovation with long-term, low-cost capital. Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh has called it “a global first in public financing for private-sector innovation.” It covers sectors such as AI, semiconductors, quantum, clean energy and space.

    TDB Secretary Rajesh Kumar Pathak framed the GalaxEye deal around self-reliance: “India’s space ecosystem is entering a phase where the ability to develop and deploy sophisticated technologies within the country will be increasingly important.”

    Put simply, the government is betting that the hardest stretch for deeptech startups is the gap between a working prototype and a proven product, and it wants to fund that gap.

    What it means for your career

    1. Spacetech is no longer only ISRO. Private companies like GalaxEye are building satellites in Bengaluru, and they need engineers, data scientists and mission operators.
    2. Satellite data plus AI is a growing skill set. Detecting vehicles or classifying targets from imagery is a machine-learning problem. Geospatial AI, remote sensing and SAR data analysis are skills worth learning now.
    3. Setbacks are part of deeptech. Drishti going silent didn’t end GalaxEye’s journey. Employers in this sector value people who can debug, learn and relaunch.

    The bigger picture

    India wants to build strategic technology at home, and the RDI Fund is one of its biggest tools for doing it. GalaxEye is one of the fund’s early bets in space. If it works, expect more Indian deeptech startups in AI, semiconductors and space to follow the same route: government capital to cross the prototype-to-product gap, then private capital to scale.

    Sources