New Delhi: The day is not far when India will build human settlements in space. Even though it is still a dream, Bengaluru-based startup Pixel Space has started working on this plan. The company plans to create its own constellation of Earth observation satellites to map the moon and asteroids and look for materials needed to build settlements in outer space. Pixel Space co-founder and CEO Awais Ahmed spoke about the startup’s long-term plans and said that these include exploring asteroids with the intention of finding building materials or potential fuel sources for future settlements in space. Ahmed said, “We are building ‘hyper-spectral’ cameras that look at the Earth. The same cameras can be turned outwards to look at other objects in space. We can send these spacecraft to the Moon, Mars or the asteroid field, and create a map of the solar system. He said that the startup would also like to put satellites in orbits around the Moon to explore Earth’s only natural satellite in more detail. “We can go to the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter and identify which of these asteroids are amazing and useless, and which of them are some of the valuable materials that can be useful in space,” Ahmed said.
Looking for ice on asteroids
Ahmed said satellites can look for ice on asteroids that can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to be used as fuel and also stored as water. “So, when humanity is moving into space, it doesn’t make sense to extract all the material from Earth when there is actually a lot of material available in space,” he said. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building the railroad for the space revolution, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and others are working on building habitats for space, he said.
“We want to be the one to provide the materials to make all this possible,” Ahmed said. But there is a very long-term view.” Pixel Space plans to launch six ‘hyper-spectral’ satellites later this year as part of its satellite constellation to map the Earth in greater detail. Another 18 satellites will be launched next year that will complete the Bengaluru-based startup’s constellation in low Earth orbit.