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This story is from September 7, 2021

Desi firm Digantara patents tech to create Space-Map a la Google maps

Imagine a service like Google maps for space that can help space agencies and companies around the world to navigate in the low Earth orbit (LEO). This is closer to becoming a reality with an Indian startup — Digantara — patenting technology allowing such a service.
Desi firm Digantara patents tech to create Space-Map a la Google maps
BENGALURU: Imagine a service like Google maps for space that can help space agencies and companies around the world to navigate in the low Earth orbit (LEO). This is closer to becoming a reality with an Indian startup — Digantara — patenting technology allowing such a service.
Bengaluru-headquartered Digantara is the world’s first company dedicated to active space-based space surveillance and Space Situational Awareness (SSA).
That is, unlike others that use a passive method involving cameras which can only track objects when there’s light, Digantara will be using lasers which can track objects continuously.
And, the multifarious team of space architects that has built an SSA solution suite for modelling centimetre-sized Resident Space Objects (RSO) and space weather in LEO has recently managed to get patents for key technology behind the solution.
Space-MAP and 1st Launch
Its Space Mission Assurance Platform (Space-MAP), Digantara CEO Anirudh Sharma told TOI was a comprehensive SSA solution platform with three key technologies.
The first component is Space-based space Climate & Object Tracker (SCOT), an advanced space surveillance sensor that tracks RSOs and space weather onboard a satellite constellation. The second is Orbital Engine (OrEng), a software package transforming SCOT data into orbital insights. Third, is Space-ADAPT, a conglomerate of products built from data derived out of SCOT &
OrEng.
“SCOT is the patented space-based space surveillance sensor that generates two much-needed ingredients for effective SSA,” Sharma added.
Digantara, which will put up a constellation of SCOT-enabled satellites that will cover the entire LEO band, is in talks for the launch of its first satellite in the second half of 2022.
Centimetre-size Objects
Explaining the technology, Sharma says, SCOT’s active surveillance provides precise 3D coordinates of RSOs measuring 1cm or larger. Also, SCOT’s weather module provides in-situ orbital radiation dose measurements.
“...OrEng is the proprietary SSA data processing engine that solves for the orbits of all the objects observed by SCOT. It extrapolates monitored objects’ coordinates and uncertainties to project their trajectories into the future. This orbital data is delivered by OrEng in industry-standard data formats. Space Awareness Data and Analysis ProducTs (Space-ADAPT) is a collection of multiple orbital data products and orbital analytic products developed based on the data extracted from SCOT and OrEng,” Sharma said.
Advanced SSA capabilities like orbit visualisation, conjunction assessment, avoidance manoeuvre planning, manoeuvre detection, and orbit risk estimation are all components of Space-ADAPT, he said, adding that satellite operators, launchers, governments, and the military will all benefit from the products.
Crowded Orbit + Space Debris
The technology assumes importance given the ever increasing number of objects in space, and space debris.
As per a recent dataset made public by the General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects by astronomer Jonathan McDowell — considered the most complete catalog of satellites, spacecraft, debris, space organizations, and launches — at least 23,000 of the more than 50,000 space objects’ catalogued since 1958 continue to remain in orbit.
While some of the 23,000 objects are in use, like satellites, a majority of them can be classified as space junk. This includes old rocket stages, space mission components that on purpose or accidentally remained in space and other artificial debris that was created by collisions, breakups or explosions.
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About the Author
Chethan Kumar

As a young democracy grows out of adolescence, its rolling out reels and reels of tales. If the first post office or a telephone connection paints one colour, the Stamp of a stock market scam or the ‘Jewel Thieves’ scandal paint yet another colour. If failure of a sounding rocket was a stepping stone, sending 104 satellites in one go was a podium. If farmer suicides are a bad climax, growing number of Unicorns are a grand entry. Chethan Kumar, Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India, who alternates between the mundane goings-on of the hoi polloi and the wonder-filled worlds of scientists and scamsters, politicians and Jawans, feels: There’s always a story, one just has to find it.

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