OXG Space Wants to Put the Cell Tower Where the Satellites Are

Earth-observation satellites can capture an image in seconds, but turning that observation into usable intelligence can still take hours. Bengaluru-based OXG Space has raised ₹17 crore to attack that delay by moving more connectivity and computing infrastructure directly into orbit.

The round was led by Aum Ventures, with participation from India Innovation Fund II, Skyroot Aerospace cofounders Pawan Kumar Chandana and Bharath Daka, and Cosmoserve founder Dr. Chiran Phanindra. The startup is developing what it describes as orbital edge cell towers combining 5G-inspired non-terrestrial connectivity with in-orbit computing.

Today, Earth-observation satellites often store data onboard until they pass over a suitable ground station. OXG says that process can leave satellites disconnected for much of the day and stretch the journey from observation to insight to four–12 hours. Its proposed network would instead allow satellites to communicate with shared orbital nodes capable of relaying, processing and combining information before transmitting useful intelligence to Earth.

The fresh funding will support **Mission Synapse**, a 12-month programme designed to demonstrate the startup’s core technologies in orbit. These include a Ka-band phased-array antenna targeting an initial link capacity in the 1 Gbps class, a deployable mesh reflector and a scalable solar array intended to power onboard communications and computing. The longer- term roadmap targets substantially higher capacity per spacecraft.

OXG Space was founded by former ISRO engineers Akash Shetty and Sanjay Gorur, who together bring more than 17 years of experience across Indian space missions, including work involving deployable reflector systems and spacecraft programmes such as Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3.

The startup’s larger bet is that the next bottleneck in Earth observation will not simply be collecting more data. It will be deciding how quickly that data can move, combine and become useful — without waiting for every satellite to talk to Earth first.