According to Reuters this morning (28th), Indian space startup TakeMe2Space plans to launch MOI-1A on a SpaceX rocket on October 1st local time, calling it India's first orbital computing satellite. Unlike sending all the raw data back to Earth, TakeMe2Space hopes to complete data processing directly in orbit.
MOI-1A weighs less than 50kg and is equipped with NVIDIA Orin NX edge computing processor, which is launched with SpaceX's Transporter-18 carpooling mission.
TakeMe2Space disclosed that the MOI-1A mission has obtained 23 clients including geographic information system companies and educational institutions. Founder and CEO Ronak Samantrey stated that commercial clients cover industries such as agriculture, mining, supply chain management, and insurance, and American space data analytics company Little Place Labs is also on the client list.
Customers can upload containerized AI models to MOI-1A. When the satellite passes over a designated area, it can directly process the collected data and only transmit the analysis results back to Earth, without the need to download the complete underlying dataset. The real value that can be seen from our first generation satellites is those customers who originally needed to spend money to download a large amount of raw data and then calculate on their own. By saving on data download costs, they can offset the additional fees they paid for in orbit computing
MOI-1A is essentially a satellite with on-board computing power (note: not a traditional data center), with a power of about 150W. Companies such as SpaceX and Starcloud plan to use more advanced NVIDIA chips.
TakeMe2Space's long-term goal is to build larger, interconnected satellites that can simultaneously serve multiple customers.
TakeMe2Space conducted a technical validation mission at the end of 2024, successfully verifying its ability to upload applications, run AI inference in orbit, and download results. The subsequently launched MOI-1 was lost due to a malfunction in the third stage of the carrier rocket.
TakeMe2Space also plans to provide in orbit cold storage services for critical data, targeting financial services and defense clients who wish to add a backup location outside of ground cloud service providers.
The company revealed that most of the satellite subsystems are designed and manufactured in-house in India, while chips, solar cells, and propulsion systems are purchased from external suppliers. The company plans to launch larger satellites starting from 2027 to improve computing power and reduce costs.
