Bengaluru-based start-up Digantara commissions world’s first commercial space surveillance satellite

The world’s first commercial space surveillance satellite, able to monitoring objects as small as 5 centimetres orbiting the Earth, was commissioned on Saturday because it captured pictures over South America, the Bengaluru-based start-up Digantara mentioned.

Digantara had launched the space surveillance satellite SCOT (Space Digital camera for Object Monitoring) on January 14 aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-12 rocket.

The satellite began operations on Saturday.

“Space simply ran out of hiding spots,” the start-up mentioned in a publish on X.

In an announcement, the corporate mentioned the SCOT satellite achieved first mild on Saturday and its inaugural picture whereas passing over South America — a panoramic view of Earth’s limb, with town of Buenos Aires glowing in opposition to the planet’s curvature.

“SCOT’s first picture is greater than a technical milestone; it is a image of our workforce’s resilience and unwavering dedication to safeguarding Earth’s orbits for generations to return,” mentioned Digantara CEO Anirudh Sharma.

The satellite is designed to trace and monitor objects as small as 5 centimetres, with a excessive revisit price for frequent and exact observations of orbital exercise.

As space turns into more and more congested, this functionality is important for mitigating collision dangers and selling sustainable space operations by offering correct and reliable knowledge to satellite operators and regulatory our bodies.

SCOT has been deployed in a sun-synchronous orbit that enables it to trace objects in Low Earth Orbit with extra effectivity than present sensors, that are restricted by fields of view, climate circumstances and geographic limitations.