Bengaluru: When Bengaluru-based space startup GalaxyEye launched its first commercial satellite, Vision, into orbit on SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket on Sunday, it was more than just another launch for India’s private space sector. Drishti, considered India’s largest privately developed Earth observation satellite and the world’s first OptoSAR satellite, also added a rare new capability to the country’s Earth observation fleet: a satellite that can “see” through clouds, darkness and bad weather while simultaneously capturing conventional optical imagery. Suyyash Singh, co-founder and CEO of Galaxy, told TOI: “It will become only the 16th remote sensing satellite available for India, placing it in a small group of spacecraft. “It also has capabilities considered useful for strategic and security applications, for which there are only a few satellites in orbit to date.”Drishti is the world’s first company to carry a “Syncfused OptoSAR” payload combining electro-optical imaging and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on a single platform. Optical satellites provide conventional high-resolution images but are affected by clouds and darkness. Radar satellites, on the other hand, can operate day and night and penetrate clouds, smoke and rain, although their visualization is harder to interpret.GalaxyEye says that by synchronizing and combining both streams of data the satellite can generate more consistent and useful imagery for users on the ground.The spacecraft is expected to support applications ranging from border surveillance and defense surveillance to disaster response, agriculture, infrastructure planning and insurance assessment. For example, during floods, cyclones or landslides, radar imaging can continue to operate even when cloud cover prevents optical satellites from capturing images.Indian Space Association (ISPA) Director General Lieutenant General (Retd) AK Bhatt said, “It marks a significant shift in India’s approach towards Earth observation. It serves as a definitive proof-of-concept for India’s private space sector reforms and signals the transition from small-scale testing to sovereign, all-weather monitoring capabilities critical for national security and disaster response.”AI processing and first imagesAnother key feature onboard is artificial intelligence processing powered by Nvidia’s Jetson Orin computing platform. Instead of sending large amounts of raw imagery back to Earth for analysis, some parts of the processing will take place directly in orbit. The aim is to reduce the time taken to transform satellite imagery into actionable information.GalaxyEye says the satellite can provide imagery at a resolution of 1.5 meters and revisit locations globally every seven to ten days. The spacecraft, approximately the size of a compact refrigerator, also carries a deployable antenna spanning approximately three and a half metres.Following its successful deployment and commissioning, initial imagery is expected to be delivered to customers in the coming weeks. “The satellite has already generated significant interest among government and commercial stakeholders internationally for access to high-quality, high-frequency Earth observation data,” GalaxyEye said after the launch.Following the launch of Vision, the startup plans to build a larger constellation of 8-12 satellites over the next four years, with future versions targeting even sharper imagery.Pawan Goenka, chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe), India’s space regulator, said: “Continued efforts over the last five-six years on confidence-building, capacity-building and commercialization of India’s private space technology ecosystem are now showing concrete results. Vision is a good example of this – the world’s first OptoSAR satellite from an Indian private company.“