SpaceX to launch India's first home-grown private satellite

Washington, Nov 18: The Falcon 9 rocket of Elon Musk-promoted firm SpaceX will take off its space flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is about 9 miles from the United States' California, and the rocket will carry 70 satellites from 16 countries including one from India called 'ExceedSAT 1', which would become the first ever private satellite from India.

Mumbai headquartered Exseed Space, the startup which has built ExceedSAT 1, will become the first Indian company to send a satellite to space. Established in 2017, Exseed Space develops small satellite platforms with a primary focus on assembly, integration, testing and operation of satellites.

The rocket is scheduled for take off at 6.32 pm (Greenwich Mean Time) on November 19, or Indian time of - November 20, 12.02 AM.

Carried on payload of SpaceX rocket mission titled 'SSO-A', which is largest of SpaceX so far, ExceedSAT 1 (in picture above) is 1U cube-sized (mini) communication satellite.

Founded by Kris Nair and Farhan Ashhar, Exseed Space is also working towards setting up India's first contract satellite manufacturing facility and once the facility gets operational, it will cater to the growing global demands of manufacturing Cubesats, Nano-sats & Micro-sats. The startup has been seed funded by Mumbai-based First Cheque, an early stage focussed fund looking to invest in 100 startups in next 5 years.