Space sector startup Digantara launches second satellite to monitor space weather
- ByStartupStory | January 4, 2023
Space sector start-up Digantara on Tuesday launched its second satellite Pushan-Alpha as a rideshare onboard SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission that soared to low earth orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.
CEO Anirudh Sharma, founder and CEO, stated in an interview that the satellite will serve as a space weather testbed in the sun synchronous orbit for enhancing precision driven situational space awareness applications. The Pushan-Alpha observations will help complement Digantara’s ROBI (ROBust Integrating proton fluence meter) mission, the world’s first commercial space-based space weather monitoring system onboard ISRO’s PSLV-C53 launched on June 30 last year.
The satellite Pushan-Alpha mission is named after the Hindu solar deity considered as the god of journeys and protector of travellers. Its mission has a three-fold objective — to extend radiation measurements to the sun synchronous orbit; to assess mid to high energy particle radiation from the South Atlantic Anomaly; and to investigate any co-relation of atmospheric drag and particle environment for enhanced orbit and debris modelling.
Sharma added “With the growing number of satellites being launched into space, space sustainability has been brought into serious question. Since the beginnings of space travel there has been a dearth of data associated with space situational awareness and we are looking to help supplement this decades old paucity of data with our indigenously built technology and infrastructure,”
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