Tata To Build LEO Satellites In India, Collaborates With Satellogic

Tata Group’s defense and aerospace solution company Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) on Wednesday notified its collaboration with Satellogic Sign Strategic, an international company specialised in Earth-observation satellites for establishing and developing local space technology capabilities in India.

With this collaboration, both TASL and Satellogic mark their first. It is Tata's first step into satellite strategy and Satellogic is also debuting into the fast-growing Indian defense and commercial market. Both companies will work together on the development of a new satellite design and will integrate multiple payloads on a single satellite to generate a diverse range of data over India. 

TASL said the ambitious project will commence with comprehensive training, knowledge transfer, and local assembly of optical sub-metre resolution EO satellites, the first of which is planned to be launched as TSAT-1A. It underscored the focus will be on manufacturing satellites and developing imagery in India for national defense and commercial applications, toward which TASL is commissioning a satellite AIT plant at its Vemagal facility in Karnataka. 

Commenting on the partnership Sukaran Singh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TASL, said “Space is important to TASL not just as a business but also due to its culture of precision that will help other activities in TASL. We are pleased to collaborate with Satellogic, a company with best-in-class technology and an entrepreneurial mindset. Additionally, TASL will also work with local SMEs for payloads and other technologies to bolster Indian content.”  

Emiliano Kargieman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Satellogic said, “This collaboration will accelerate space capacity building for one of the largest nations in the world with the goal of enabling the advancement of commercial space capabilities and greater access to critical information for a range of applications such as security, sustainability, and energy.”

Founded in 2010 by Emiliano Kargieman and Gerardo Richarte, Satellogic is unlocking the power of EO to deliver high-quality, planetary insights at the lowest cost in the industry. This contract marks Satellogic’s second Space Systems customer, following an agreement with an international space agency.