Trilegal advised consortium lead Pixxel on its winning bid to design, build, and operate India’s first fully indigenous commercial Earth Observation (EO) satellite constellation under the Public-Private Partnership (EO-PPP) model with the Indian Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe).
The Trilegal team advising on the matter was led by Partner, Abhishek Dubey, and supported by Senior Associate, Ishita Sinha and Associates, Sagnik Sarkar and Aditya Kaushik.
Pixxel is a deep-tech space company that specialises in the distribution of hyperspectral imagery and operates a constellation of six of the world’s highest resolution, commercial-grade hyperspectral earth observation satellites known as the ‘Firefly’ constellation.
The consortium, consisting of Pixxel and its industry peers, SatSure, PierSight, and Dhruva Space, will build a constellation of 12 earth observation satellites over the course of the next 5 years, at an estimated project cost of more than INR 1,200 crores / USD 130 million. The constellation will integrate high-resolution optical, multispectral, hyperspectral, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR), payloads, supported by a network of ground infrastructure, and provide satellite imagery, value-added services, and analytics, to its customers.
The consortium and IN-SPACe have now signed the agreement formalising the terms of the PPP project. The project represents a milestone in the development of an indigenous earth observation satellite constellation that can serve both private, as well Indian government and strategic, customers.
