India's first orbital data center to be launched in 2028
What's the story
Hyderabad-based TakeMe2Space is gearing up to launch India's first orbital data center. The mission will be carried out on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in 2028. As part of the project, the company plans to deploy a constellation of six satellites over the next few years. The first two satellites will be launched as part of the Waymaker 2 rideshare mission, scheduled for late 2028.
Mission details
Waymaker 2 mission will see 2 satellites launched
The Waymaker 2 mission will see two 100kg My Orbital Infrastructure (MOI) constellation satellites launched on a Falcon 9 rocket.
The launch window is set for late 2028, following a launch service agreement with RIDE! space, the mission management company that booked the slot.
"Everything we have flown so far has been about proving that compute belongs in orbit," said Ronak Kumar Samantray, founder and CEO of TakeMe2Space.
Global alignment
Project puts India on the map
The upcoming mission also puts an Indian company on the map of a global movement to shift computing into orbit.
The project will test if two spacecraft can function as one computer, a different approach from existing methods that usually involve a single spacecraft carrying a large processor.
This is part of the company's larger plan to create an orbital data center in space.
Past missions
TakeMe2Space's 1st mission was launched in December 2024
TakeMe2Space's first mission, MOI-TD (Technology Demonstrator), was launched on December 30, 2024. It conducted over 20 experiments in low Earth orbit.
The company has also scheduled two more launches for its data center-class satellites on October 1: MOI-1a and MOI-1b.
Each satellite will generate about 1.5kW of power to run computing workloads in orbit, hosting 10 NVIDIA Thor GPUs and offering 100TB of storage capacity.
Data sharing
Satellites will be connected by optical inter-satellite links
The two satellites will be connected by optical inter-satellite links, enabling them to share workloads and data.
This is the first Indian mission designed to network computing across spacecraft rather than run it on a single satellite.
Each satellite carries a multispectral imager with a ground sampling distance of about one meter, while the OrbitLab platform supplies onboard compute to process and analyze that imagery directly in orbit.