Space start-up Pixxel delays launch of its first satellite Anand

New Delhi, February 24: India's space start-up Pixxel has delayed the launch of its first commercial private satellite called Anand due to ‘certain software issues’. With that delayed, India will have to wait longer to get its first commercial private satellite in orbit.

 

Indian space startup Pixxel made this announcement via social media. It announced that the decision to pull out of the launch five days before lift-off was due to software glitches detected during the final stages of the satellite testing.

 

“Given the time and effort that has gone into making the satellite, it did not make sense to rush a satellite to launch in which we do not have complete confidence at this time,” Pixxel said on Twitter. “We have thus decided to push our launch by a few weeks, reevaluate the satellite software, and test it rigorously over the next few weeks as we look for the next closest launch opportunity,” the update continued.

 

 

 

According to Pixel, the company has further decided to wait for a few weeks and, re-evaluate the satellite software and test it rigorously while looking for the next closest launch opportunity.

 

Anand is a technology demonstration satellite that is part of the pixels firefly fleet of earth observation satellites. The company is aiming to deploy the satellite in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to monitor the planet around the clock. According to the company, it will then beam down good quality data from space. This data will essentially be a picture of the Earth. Manufacturing of the satellite began in July 2019 and was wrapped up by 2020.

 

It should be noted that the satellite was scheduled to go up in orbit along with two other Indian satellites and a milestone Brazilian remote-sensing satellite on 28 February. The rocket is scheduled to take off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at around 10:23 am Indian Standard Time (IST).