Astrogate Labs Bets On Laser Technology To Speed Up Satellite Data Transfers

In 2025, more than 11,800 active satellites orbit Earth, and this number is expected to surge past 40,000 by 2030. As the sky gets increasingly crowded, the demand for faster, more efficient data transfer has never been higher.

Satellites power everything from navigation and internet access to climate monitoring and disaster response. Yet much of this data still travels slowly back to Earth, hampered by the limitations of traditional radio frequency (RF) systems.

To overcome these bottlenecks, the industry is turning to optical satellite communication — a technology that promises data transfer speeds up to 100 times faster than conventional RF. Astrogate Labs, a Bengaluru-based spacetech startup, is tapping into this shift with its laser-based satellite communication systems aimed at redefining how satellites transmit data.

“Modern satellites can generate over 100 GB of data every day. If you use radio frequency transmission to download that data, you would hardly transfer 20-25% of the data in a day. With our optical transmission technology, you will get more than 20 times that bandwidth,” Nitish Singh, who cofounded spacetech startup Astrogate Labs, told Inc42. 

Singh, an IIT Kharagpur graduate, set up Astrogate Labs in 2017 to build its laser-based satellite communication tech stack with a vision to take on overseas rivals like Astrolight and Archangel Lightworks, as well as giants like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and China’s Chang Guang Satellite Technology. 

Astrogate Labs now aims for a slice of the global optical satellite communication market, which is likely to cross $5 Bn by 2030 from more than $1.5 Bn. Currently, Astrogate is being spearheaded by Singh and two others, Yogeshwaran J and Subhajit Chakraborty, who have recently been made cofounders. 

Lunar Landing To Space Data Traffic 

The tale of Astrogate Labs is that of to the moon and back, nearly coinciding with the NASA project of laser beam reflection from 385,000 Km away on the lunar surface in 2020. 

The seeds of Astrogate Labs germinated when Singh was a part of Team Indus, the only Indian company that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize to land a spacecraft on the moon back in 2019. As the leader of mission planning and operations, Singh encountered a fundamental challenge in satellite communications. During his three-and-a-half years at Team Indus, he spotted the difficulty in getting large amounts of data back to earth using traditional radio frequencies. 

He believes that communication bottleneck was one of the key challenges for the space industry. The issue remained unresolved as spacetech companies focussed on launching more things into space or launching them cheaply. 

Singh chose to ask how to make these launches more economical and how to fetch more data from the satellites? He found his answer in optical satellite communication. This formed the core idea behind Astrogate Labs.

In 2021, Astrogate Labs started developing Astro-Link, its laser-based satellite communication terminal that enables data transmission rates of up to 1 Gbps. 

While most of its large competitors today are focussed on larger satellites, Astrogate Labs targets a growing market of small satellites or CubeSats – a class of nanosatellites that use a standard size and form factor with dimensions of 10x10x10 cm – that demand more intricate engineering, given their size, weight, and power constraints.

“Laser technology-based data transfer can go up to 10 Gbps and beyond. The product that we are building right now is for small satellites and can communicate at a data rate of 1 Gbps over a 1,000 Km,” Singh said.

The startup plans to scale it to 10 Gbps in future versions.

After almost eight years of developing its space-to-ground solution, building the satellite communication hardware and getting it qualified for a space launch, Astrogate Labs is yet to test its technology in space. It is now working towards flight heritage, which is the industry term for proven performance in orbit. 

The European Space Agency says satellite operators and manufacturers accept flight heritage when a technology works in a commercially representative environment, ideally, a commercial company on a commercial satellite. 

Astrogate Labs plans to have its technology in space by the end of 2025, which would be a crucial milestone for gaining broader customer acceptance. Its business model combines hardware sales with a service component where satellite operators can purchase its optical terminal and integrate it into their satellite before launch, and then subscribe to a ground communication service to receive the data.

This approach minimises the infrastructure investment required by customers while providing Astrogate Labs with both upfront and recurring revenue streams.

Astrogate Labs sees significant opportunities in Earth observation satellite constellations operated by commercial companies. India has one of the largest constellations of these remote sensing satellites. Instruments onboard these satellites provide data in a diversified spatial, spectral and temporal resolution to cater to different user requirements. 

As a deeptech startup, which requires more patient capital for its longer development cycles, it sees government organisations as ‘early anchor customers’ before full-fledged commercial deployment of its tech stack.

Navigating Tech Hurdles On Space Track

Radio frequency is an electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths at different points on the spectrum. Satellites modulate their data in electromagnetic signals before sending to ground stations. As the communication travels, the waves spread out. Laser-based communications differ from radio waves by packing the entire data into significantly tighter waves so that ground stations can receive more data at once. 

Despite its distinct advantages, the laser communication technology didn’t receive much attention until recently, when major players like Starlink and Amazon Project Kuiper started investing in it.

Laser communication also scores low in terms of power consumption compared to RF.  It doesn’t also require expensive spectrum licensing, unlike RF systems, and has several other benefits, including better security.

However, implementing laser communication technology for satellites presents significant technical hurdles, particularly in maintaining precise alignment between rapidly moving objects separated by hundreds of kilometres.

“Unlike radio frequency antennas, which can produce radio beams that are many times the size of the earth, laser beams are relatively narrow. This means the optical transmitter should be fitted on a precise pointing and tracking system that directs the laser beams in the direction of ground-based receivers,” Singh explained.

The startup has developed sophisticated pointing and tracking systems that continuously adjust the laser’s aim with micrometre-level precision.

The startup has spent years refining this technology to work within the size, weight, and power constraints of small satellites.

Weather conditions are another major challenge for laser beams, as they, unlike radio waves, can’t penetrate thick cloud cover. But Astrogate Labs claims to have found a solution to that by strategically placing ground stations in regions known to have clear skies.

The startup has made collaborations with companies like Momentus, which helps in navigating satellites in space, and governments to set up ground stations in Australia, while it is mapping its foray into the Middle East. In 2021, Astrogate Labs partnered with the University of Tasmania to set up an optical ground station and collaborated with Indian defence organisations between 2022 and 2025 for secure ship-to-ship (direct optical signals through air, not radio or acoustic waves) laser communications.

Looking To The Stars

After successful demonstration of their laser communication systems, Astrogate has passed the space grade certification tests, including thermal, vacuum, and vibration testing. The startup has scheduled its first flight missions in 12 months to test the technology on actual satellites.

With its recent funding, the company has started hiring across departments such as avionics, optomechanics, and mechanical departments, as well as marketing and operations.

With this fundraising and growth in the number of clients, Astrogate Labs expects to reach the growth capital stage within 18-24 months.

The company looks to raise additional funds to set up commercial optical ground stations and expand its commercial customer base beyond defence and government applications by 2026.

Singh said the company is also working to develop inter-satellite terminals for laser-based communication between satellites operating as part of its network. The prototypes are expected to be ready by early next year. 

As satellite data becomes increasingly crucial for applications ranging from climate monitoring to disaster response, the demand for higher-bandwidth communications continues to grow. By addressing the data bottleneck with its laser communication technology, Astrogate Labs is building infrastructure that could fundamentally change how we use satellites, ensuring that crucial information doesn’t get trapped in space.

“We are building a technology in an area that is more like whispering into someone’s ear – the message is focussed, efficient, and private – unlike traditional satellite communication that he deems shouting across a crowded room,” summed up Singh.

In a field historically dominated by government agencies and large aerospace corporations, startups like Astrogate Labs could help Indian satellite companies improve their existing technologies while potentially making the services faster, more reliable, and more comprehensive.

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]

(Note: The article has been updated to remove the names of Astrogate’s clients and an erstwhile cofounder on the company’s request. We have also updated the names of two new cofounders.)