Digantara: India’s Vanguard in Space Surveillance and Orbital Safety – by Ritwaj Ranjan, Space News Contributor – India, Interplanetary.tv – Photo credit: Digantara Aerospace | Video credit: Kalaari Capital.

In the vast and increasingly congested expanse of Earth’s orbit, safeguarding satellites and space missions has become more critical than ever. At the forefront of this effort is Digantara, a Bengaluru-based space-tech startup founded by Anirudh Sharma, Rahul Rawat, and Tanveer Ahmed. The company is spearheading India’s first private Space Situational Awareness (SSA) initiative—an ambitious vision to monitor, track, and ultimately manage the complex and hazardous environment of space.

Founded in 2018, Digantara has emerged as a vital player in a global race to secure orbital highways. With the rise of mega-constellations and rapid commercial expansion into space, the dangers of space debris—defunct satellites, rocket fragments, and collision remnants—are no longer hypothetical. They are real, growing, and threatening the sustainability of outer space. Digantara’s solution? A seamless, space-based surveillance network that offers continuous, high-resolution data on everything that moves in orbit.

Digantara Aerospace’s milestones:

2018 – Company founded by IIST graduates Anirudh Sharma, Rahul Rawat, and Tanveer Ahmed.

2020 – Selected for India’s Startup India Seed Fund Scheme.

2023 – Successfully launched first space situational payload aboard ISRO’s PSLV-C55 mission.

2024 – Rolled out Space-MAP, India’s first commercial Space Mission Assurance Platform.

Digantara’s Journney.

The journey of Digantara began in the classrooms of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), where its founders identified a critical gap in India’s space infrastructure: a lack of indigenous capability to track and manage space debris. While most countries relied on ground-based radars for SSA, the trio envisioned something more advanced — a constellation of satellites capable of offering real-time, global orbital insights directly from space.

With early recognition from ISRO, funding support from Kalaari Capital, and partnerships with national and international space entities, Digantara quickly turned vision into reality. Their innovative approach centers on space-based surveillance systems, which provide consistent, weather-independent data and superior coverage compared to Earth-based alternatives.

In 2023, Digantara marked a major breakthrough with the successful deployment of its first SSA payload on ISRO’s PSLV-C55 mission. This paved the way for the development of a comprehensive monitoring network that can track active satellites, predict collisions, and offer precise de-orbiting guidance — all in real time.

A significant leap came with the launch of Space-MAP (Mission Assurance Platform), India’s first space mission intelligence system. This unified platform integrates space weather analytics, object tracking, risk assessment, and satellite health monitoring to help operators make faster and safer decisions.

As India scales up its presence in space, Digantara is playing a foundational role in shaping the architecture for responsible and secure space operations.

With their unique fusion of engineering insight, academic excellence, and bold vision, the company stands as a testament to how Indian innovation is helping safeguard not just national space interests—but the global orbital commons.

In a future increasingly reliant on satellites and space-based infrastructure, Digantara isn’t just watching the skies—they’re making them safer for everyone.

— Ritwaj Ranjan

About the Author.

Ritwaj Ranjan is a full-stack web and mobile applications software engineer from Bangalore, India, and, space news contributor to Interplanetary Television. With a strong foundation in frontend and backend development technologies, he has worked at Othor.ai and Bhopal. He has designed and deployed over 20 user-centric interfaces with React.js, resulting in a 30% increase in customer satisfaction scores. Ranjan has also led a team in website development, resulting in a 40% increase in client customization efficiency.