Digantara, a Spacetech startup, has launched the world's first commercial space-based weather system, ROBI (ROBust Integrating proton fluence metre) aboard the Indian Space Research Organisations' PSLV - C53 Mission.

Digantara was started by alumni of Lovely Professional University. The company was backed by Kalaari Capital, with a seed funding of $2.5 million in 2021. Using this, the startup aggressively strengthened their technological infrastructure and sent an asset to space to less than a year.

The digital space weather monitoring instrument has an extremely small footprint, with a power consumption rate of 20 megawatt. The device is made such that it is ideal for placing in any space satellite, irrespective of size, shape or application.

This home grown technology will help increase the amount of empirical space weather data available in the near future.

An efficient space weather instrument will be highly beneficial in monitoring major space weather events which can impose severe repercussions.

A significant space weather event recently cost SpaceX 40 of its satellites. Furthermore, European Space Agency (ESA) Swarm constellation operators observed a six-fold increase in sink rates of their satellites owing to Solar Drag.