WASHINGTON — An Indian startup is entering the satellite servicing market with plans to develop low-cost spacecraft to extend the lives of satellites.
Aule Space announced Jan. 15 that it raised a $2 million seed round from investors led by pi Ventures, an Indian venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage deeptech companies, with participation from several individual investors.
The startup plans to develop spacecraft it calls “jetpacks” that will be able to attach to other satellites to handle stationkeeping. That is a concept pioneered by the Mission Extension Vehicles from SpaceLogistics, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, and being pursued by other companies.
The company’s technical approach will be similar to other concepts for satellite life extension. The jetpack will approach the client satellite, attaching to the nozzle of the engine used on geostationary satellites to raise their orbits.
Aule Space hopes to do so less expensively, though, than other companies. “Operating out of India, and having our engineering base here, will help give us the cost advantages that are required in such a cost-sensitive economy,” said Jay Panchal, co-founder and chief executive of the company, in an interview. “To make the business case for life extension, cost is the biggest factor.”
That focus on cost extends to the satellite design. “We are trying to remove dependency on costly sensors like radars and lidars, and trying to use only computer vision and camera systems” for approaching and docking with client satellites, he said, along with artificial intelligence for processing that imagery.
The seed funding will allow Aule Space to being work on a demonstration mission planned for launch next year to test its docking capabilities. That will involve two satellites, each weighing about 30 kilograms, but Panchal said one option is to instead use an orbital transfer vehicle as the client for the docking demonstration.
The 11-person company, which plans to grow to 20 people by the end of the quarter, is working on ground tests of its rendezvous and docking technology. It has access to facilities used by the Indian space agency ISRO for testing SPADEX, a docking demonstration mission flown a year ago.
The seed funding will allow Aule Space to complete ground tests, he said, with additional funding needed to build and launch the demonstration mission.
Aule Space is currently focused on life extension of GEO satellites, with interest from commercial customers but no firm contracts yet. The company is also seeing interest in its jetpacks from the Indian government, including ISRO and the Indian military.
The company is part of an expanding ecosystem of Indian space startups, supported by Indian government initiatives to spur the growth of such companies, along with growing access to capital. Panchal, one of three co-founders, previously worked for another Indian space startup, hyperspectral imaging company Pixxel.
Those startups include companies that could eventually be both suppliers to and customer of Aule Space, Panchal said, although his company is also looking beyond India for suppliers. “Right now we are still mostly relying on global players who have shown reliability with a history of past missions,” he said.
Those startups also don’t have, for now, high-value satellites that would benefit from life extension. He added, though, they could be customers in the future for additional capabilities, like debris removal.
The company is working to educate Indian investors on the prospects of satellite servicing. “Launch is something where there are examples in the West that they can see and think can be done in India,” he said, along with Earth observation. There are fewer examples of satellite servicing, though, for such investors to grasp.”
He said the company was grateful to secure support from pi Ventures, which has invested in a wide range of early-stage deeptech companies in India. “They got our vision of building the robotic workforce for space and the long term returns they can get.”
“What stood out to us was the rare combination of deep technical excellence and a clearly thought-through commercial roadmap,” said Manish Singhal, founding partner at pi Ventures, in a statement. “We believe Aule is building critical infrastructure that will underpin the next phase of the space economy across satellite servicing, orbital sustainability, and space security.”
Panchal said the company sees the opportunity to establish itself as a leader in an emerging market. “Even globally, the champions have yet to emerge,” he said, with the goal of becoming “a billion-dollar company doing satellite servicing.”
