The satellites are set to be positioned in a sun-synchronous orbit at approximately 550 km, with the remaining three expected to be launched in the second quarter of the year.
The launch is planned for Vandenberg Space Force Base at around 10:45 a.m. Pacific Time (1845 GMT) on Tuesday, which will be just after midnight in India the following day, pending final approvals.
Awais Ahmed, Pixxel's founder and CEO, informed Reuters that the company intends to expand its fleet by adding 18 more satellites to the six already developed, targeting a share of the satellite imaging market anticipated to reach $19 billion by 2029.
This launch represents a pivotal moment for India's developing private space sector and for Pixxel, a startup backed by Google that has been in operation for five years.
The company plans to leverage hyperspectral imaging—a technology that captures intricate data across numerous light bands—to support various industries, including agriculture, mining, environmental monitoring, and defense.
Pixxel asserts that its satellites can provide insights that enhance crop yields, track resources, and monitor oil spills and national borders with greater precision than existing technologies permit.
"The satellite imagery market today is around $4.3 billion, with analysis adding another $14 billion. By 2029, the market is projected to reach $19 billion. Hyperspectral imaging, which is new, could realistically capture $500 million to $1 billion of this, plus additional revenue from analysis," Ahmed said.
Ahmed mentioned that Pixxel has brought on about 65 clients, including big names like Rio Tinto, British Petroleum, and India's Ministry of Agriculture, with some already shelling out cash for data from its demo satellites. They've also secured contracts for future data from the Firefly constellation.
"For defence-use cases, conversations are happening predominantly in the U.S. and India, and in other regions through resellers and partners. Usually, government agencies want to see things launched and working before committing to procurement," said Ahmed, who is 27.
Pixxel anticipates making initial contact with the satellites roughly two and a half hours post-launch, with full commercial imaging capabilities expected by mid-March.
However, their growth plans are up against tough competition in a global satellite market largely led by the U.S. and China.
The U.S. is at the forefront of commercial and government satellite launches, thanks to private firms like SpaceX and various government contracts, while China is stepping up as a competitor with its aggressive state-supported initiatives and rapid growth in low Earth orbit satellites.
Despite India's strong space capabilities, it only holds a 2% share of the global commercial space market. The government is now looking to private companies to help boost that share, aiming to expand the country’s space sector from $8 billion to $44 billion by 2030.
Pixxel is optimistic about overcoming these hurdles with its Firefly constellation, which features a 5-meter resolution and a 40-km swath width—surpassing competitors like Finland's Kuva Space and San Francisco's Orbital Sidekick, whose satellites generally have lower resolution and narrower coverage.
"If and once their commissioning is successful, they'll have more imaging capacity than ISRO in the hyperspectral band, which for the Indian industry is a watershed moment,” said Narayan Prasad, COO at the Netherlands-based space industry marketplace Satsearch.