Digantara CEO Anirudh Sharma speaks to NDTV's Vishnu Som at Davos
The space surveillance and intelligence firm Digantara got the idea of tracking objects in space after seeing the huge problem of space debris, founder and CEO Anirudh Sharma told NDTV at Davos.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had congratulated the Digantara team for the success of 'Mission SCOT' as "an important contribution of the growing Indian space industry towards enhancing space situational awareness."
"I started this company with no background in space tech. So this was more of an accident to me while I was working towards building a satellite as part of the ISRO Student Satellite Launch Programme. We stumbled upon the idea of tracking space objects because one of the satellites that we launched as students was hit by space debris," Mr Sharma, 26, told NDTV at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet in Davos, where some of the world's biggest leaders and thinkers are the attendees.
"That's when we realised the space debris problem is big. We should work towards traffic management solutions for space, just like we have air traffic management for the aviation industry. We needed a similar solution for space," the young space tech entrepreneur told NDTV.
"This mission is mostly about tracking objects in space in a simple way. What we're building are maps, but for space, by tracking every single object in orbit. We're building a library for use in developing navigation tools for satellite operations," Mr Sharma said.
Digantara on January 16 announced that 'Mission SCOT' successfully established contact with its ground station. The spacecraft deployed solar panel arrays, reported positive power levels and proper stabilisation.
Mr Sharma said a lot of satellites are going up right now, and most of them are commercial, so there should be a solution to track them.
"Initially, it was very difficult for us to find infrastructure where we could build these solutions. Later, we got incubated by the Indian Institute of Science and they invested in us as well. So that was the first step that we did to build credibility as founders in building something for the country and building solutions in the space tech ecosystem. The second thing is venture capital funding," Mr Sharma said.
He said they eventually managed to get funding from Sequoia Capital India, which is now Peak 15 Partners, Kalari Capital, and "good people who have invested in our company".
On the security ramifications of the project, Mr Sharma said, "One of the things that we do apart from tracking space objects is to provide movements on adversary satellites by tracking them. This is very important from a national security standpoint because geopolitically, we've seen a lot of wars and a lot of wars are linked to space."
With satellites in orbit that can monitor a certain portion of the country, Mr Sharma said the company helps the authorities understand when a satellite would pass over that region, and when it would not pass.
"For that, we need intelligence where we track these objects and understand how close they are coming to a particular satellite of ours or on-ground location, where it is right now. Providing insights of adversary satellite movement is something that we do for national security," Mr Sharma said.
He said Team Digantara has 100 people, with the oldest 76 years old, who has experience of working with the US government and is the company's US hand. Many former ISRO scientists are also working with Digantara in India, Mr Sharma added.
The five-day meeting at Davos that began today is exploring how to relaunch growth, harness new technologies and strengthen social and economic resilience, according to the World Economic Forum. The global meeting is seeing participation by nearly 3,000 leaders from over 130 countries, including 350 governmental leaders.
India's participation at Davos aims to strengthen partnerships, attract investment, and position the country as a global leader in sustainable development and technological innovation. India sent five Union ministers, three chief ministers, and ministers from several other states to the WEF this time.
