The mission will put India's first indigenously developed miniaturised space telescope into low earth orbit.
Published Nov 30, 2025 | 6:00 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 30, 2025 | 6:00 PM
The startup raised a pre-Series A round of approximately$1.2 million, around Rs 10.5 crore, led by MountTech Growth Fund-Kavachh.
Synopsis: Hyderabad-based EON Space Labs has successfully completed NASA-standard thermo-vacuum testing of MIRA – India’s first indigenously developed 502-gram miniaturised space telescope. Cleared for December 2025 launch on a TakeMe2Space-ISRO PSLV mission, MIRA will deliver sub-10m resolution imaging from LEO for defence, agriculture, maritime and disaster-monitoring applications, marking a milestone in private Indian space optics.
A 502-gram telescope sat inside a vacuum chamber in Ahmedabad where technicians drained air to 10⁻⁵ torr and swung temperatures between −20°C and +60°C. The device captured images and transmitted data, mimicking conditions 400 km above Earth where sunlight and shadow alternate every 90 minutes.
EON Space Labs completed thermo-vacuum testing on MIRA this month. The Hyderabad startup’s space telescope passed NASA-standard certification, clearing it for launch aboard a TakeMe2Space satellite in December 2025. The mission will put India’s first indigenously developed miniaturised space telescope into low earth orbit.
“Passing TVAC to NASA-aligned standards is what allowed us to call MIRA space-grade rather than just lab-grade,” Sanjay Kumar, chief executive and co-founder of EON Space Labs, told South First.
Engineers tested MIRA at vacuum levels emptier than the space between stars. The telescope showed no optical drift. Structural integrity held through extreme temperature swings. Outgassing measured negligible. The device executed autonomous imaging sequences when connected to TakeMe2Space’s onboard computer, capturing scene data and packaging metadata the same way it will operate in orbit.
“The goal was to prove that in a real-world mission environment, MIRA remains a fully operational payload,” Kumar said.
The three co-founders worked together at LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad before 2022, building ultra-precision optics for ophthalmic and medical imaging. Sanjay Kumar led optical design and systems engineering. Manoj Kumar Gaddam focused on electro-optics, controls and AI. Punit Badeka handled manufacturing, operations and partnerships.
Left to Right, Cofounders at EON Space Labs, Punit Badeka, Manoj Kumar Gaddam, Sanjay Kumar.(Supplied)
When India opened up to private participation in space and defence, they spotted a gap. High-end electro-optical and infrared payloads came from Germany and Israel. In 2022, they incorporated EON Space Labs with a clear vision: build world-class imaging payloads for India’s needs while serving global demand.
“We felt we had enough expertise to formally incorporate EON Space Labs and design and qualify dual-use payloads for satellites, drones and ground systems entirely from India with the right set of partners,” Kumar said.
Hyderabad offered three advantages: optics and defence talent, access to incubators, and proximity to customers. The T-Hub ecosystem and IIT-Madras incubation brought mentorship, early investor connections and infrastructure like labs and partner networks. The city hosts DRDO labs, system integrators and aerospace startups, allowing EON to co-develop solutions and win iDEX challenges.
“Hyderabad’s cost structure let us invest our limited capital into precision tooling and engineering talent while keeping other overhead costs lower compared to other metros,” Kumar said.
The startup raised a pre-Series A round of approximately$1.2 million, around Rs 10.5 crore, led by MountTech Growth Fund-Kavachh. HHV Advanced Technologies joined as a strategic investor and optics manufacturing partner. Funding targeted three goals: make MIRA orbit-ready, commercialise LUMIRA aerial platforms, and expand the engineering team.
Each founder leads a distinct vertical. Kumar drives optical engineering and research and development, overseeing miniaturised telescopes, electro-optical and infrared systems, and payload technologies. Badeka manages operations, production, customer programmes, financials and business development. Gaddam handles compliance, vendor management, budgeting, procurement governance and human resources.
EON operates with a team working across optics, mechanical design, electronics, AI and vision engineering, and manufacturing. The facility includes optical prototyping setups, an electro-optical and infrared payload integration room, and a data processing lab.
“This integrated setup allows EON to rapidly design, manufacture, test, and deploy advanced optical payloads while maintaining full control over quality and timelines,” Kumar said.
EON operates two verticals: space-based and drone-based earth observation systems. The strategy builds one vertically integrated optical and AI stack that scales across satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, and ground platforms.
“Earth observation is no longer a single-platform game and requires a multi-domain approach especially for defence use-cases,” Kumar said. “The same conflict or climate event can demand space-based solutions like satellite EO services, real-time aerial coverage, and ground-based verification.”
Drone and ground systems deliver faster iteration cycles and revenue. MIRA and future space payloads build long-term strategic value and export potential.
The startup targets long-range electro-optical and infrared surveillance for defence, border security, coastal monitoring, critical infrastructure and disaster response. The global electro-optical and infrared systems market sits around $ 11 billion in 2025. EON competes with Next Vision from Israel and Teledyne FLIR from the United States.
Introducing Made in India EON: EO-IR Payload, to detect humans from 1.5Km using drones.
The initial results captured at a 78-degree angle from nadir. @DefenceMinIndia @PBNS_India @PIB_India @PMOIndia @indiannavy @India_iDEX @DefProdnIndia @MIB_India @Tri_Service @Arun_Golaya pic.twitter.com/UNZMhLjZDT— EON Space Labs (@EonSpacelabs) October 13, 2023
“While most optics companies focus on a single domain, we have adopted an approach to target multiple domains across space, aerial and ground EO/IR imaging systems,” Kumar said.
Conceptual work on MIRA began before EON formally incorporated. Focused development kicked off in 2022 with access to facilities at strategic partners like HHV Advanced Technologies.
The 502-gram weight resulted from key innovations: a monolithic optical assembly manufactured from a single block of fused silica, ultra-precision machining to eliminate bulky alignment hardware, and athermal structural design to minimise moving parts. Co-optimising optics, mechanics and electronics instead of treating them as separate boxes enabled weight reduction without compromising resolution or stability.
“These innovations enabled us to design and develop MIRA which is three to four times lighter than conventional space telescopes and challenge commercial off the shelf components,” Kumar said.
MIRA Comparison with Nikon Lens
The flight-qualified variant, MIRA-50 FS, delivers sub-10 metre ground sampling distance from orbit. The system handles multispectral imaging of agricultural fields, detection of ship groups in maritime environments, and detection of large vehicle clusters. Defence applications span border surveillance, maritime domain awareness, and activity detection. Commercial uses include precision agriculture, urban expansion analysis, infrastructure monitoring and disaster mapping.
“The payload’s dual-use capability comes from a single, modular optical stack that can be reconfigured through software and data-processing pipelines, enabling multiple mission profiles without changing the underlying hardware,” Kumar said.
MIRA underwent thermo-vacuum testing at an NABL-accredited facility in Ahmedabad, exposed to high vacuum around 10⁻⁵ torr and temperature cycles from roughly −20°C to +60°C to simulate low earth orbit day-night extremes. Engineers monitored optical performance continuously, focusing on structural stability, outgassing and electronics behaviour.
Failure would have shown up as focus shifts, degraded modulation transfer function, structural deformation, condensation or contamination on optics, or intermittent electronics under thermal stress. Any of those would have forced a redesign and re-test.
MIRA on SCALE
“MIRA underwent negligible outgassing, no measurable optical drift and stable electronic functionality,” Kumar said.
Ahead of flight, engineers carried out hardware-in-the-loop tests where MIRA interfaced with TakeMe2Space’s high-performance onboard computer stack. The payload executed command scripts, captured scene data from calibration targets, and packaged metadata and imagery using the same links that will operate in orbit.
MIRA will ride as a hosted payload on a TakeMe2Space 6U CubeSat planned for launch aboard an ISRO PSLV in December 2025. A heritage flight serves as TakeMe2Space’s first mission for creating a data centre in space. The objective demonstrates that hardware and software stack function reliably in actual low earth orbit conditions and proves functionality for future payload missions.
“The exercise serves as an important milestone for future defence or civilian contracts which mandate existing space-proven hardware,” Kumar said.
EON’s optical and electro-optical and infrared systems contain over 90 per cent indigenous content. All lenses, monolithic optics and optical assemblies come from HHV Advanced Technologies in Bengaluru. The partnership ensures control over optical designs, access to precision machines and metrology systems, high-quality production for space-grade lenses, joint research and development capability, and scalable manufacturing.
“This is one of the most important reasons we chose HHV as a strategic partner,” Kumar said.
The thermal camera image sensor remains the only imported component, sourced from a non-Chinese global original equipment manufacturer because these sensors are not yet available at required performance levels in India. All electronics, mechanical systems, enclosures and software come from Indian sources.
The startup collaborates with multiple partners. TakeMe2Space provides the immediate flight opportunity. Kepler Aerospace serves as a technology and mission-architecture partner, with EON as their electro-optics provider for planned CubeSat constellations. Inspecity focuses on analytics and downstream data services, turning raw imagery from EON payloads into actionable insights.
“Commercially, we already see interest from defence customers, state disaster-management agencies and foreign system integrators for post-December missions,” Kumar said.
Near-term revenue comes primarily from hardware sales. LUMIRA electro-optical and infrared gimbals for drones, unmanned aerial vehicles and aerostats have received confirmed recurring orders. The LUMIRA series was developed with major drone original equipment manufacturers and already integrates on their platforms.
EON introduced a payload-as-a-service model, offering electro-optical and infrared payloads to drone manufacturers on a weekly basis, supporting integration and helping them deliver complete solutions to end users.
“Overall, the mix ensures near-term predictability and long-term scalability,” Kumar said.
Looking at the two-year pipeline, the space segment contributes roughly 60 per cent of upcoming business, including payload development, integration missions and planned launches for MIRA and ARGUS systems. The aerial segment contributes around 30 per cent, the fastest-growing segment because drone original equipment manufacturers place recurring orders as fleets expand. Ground-based systems make up the remaining 10 per cent.
The optical stack integrates AI-accelerated perception functions: multi-modal object detection in electro-optical and infrared modes, object tracking with motion prediction, re-identification for target continuity, onboard image enhancement, real-time scene understanding, and AI-guided gimbal pointing. Space-grade AI processing includes radiation-tolerant inference models and onboard anomaly detection.
“The optical stack is built around edge AI, enabling autonomy, low-latency target tracking, and mission-ready environmental awareness across drone and space-based platforms,” Kumar said.
The hardest technical problem involved achieving and maintaining optical performance through extreme thermal and vacuum cycles within a 502-gram payload weight. Getting surfaces right with ultra-precision machining was the initial challenge. Ensuring the instrument does not warp, de-align or outgas under thermo-vacuum testing while remaining manufacturable at scale presented the biggest obstacles.
“These gaps were tackled through a mix of in-house R&D and capability building along with important partnerships,” Kumar said.
Five years from now, EON envisions operating a constellation of compact MIRA-class telescopes in low earth orbit, delivering electro-optical and infrared data for defence, intelligence, agriculture, disaster management, maritime awareness and environmental monitoring. Some missions will be directly owned by EON, while others will operate as hosted payloads.
Success means a fully matured LUMIRA product line deployed across Indian and global drone original equipment manufacturers, defence users, border forces and infrastructure operators. The startup expects aerial and ground solutions to contribute around 40 per cent of revenue through hardware sales, integrations and payload-as-a-service models.
The space segment will contribute around 50 per cent from payload sales, hosted-payload partnerships, mission-based revenue sharing and earth-imaging data services. The remaining 10 per cent will come from specialised optics and custom imaging systems.
A major part of the five-year vision involves establishing EON’s own in-house manufacturing ecosystem, bringing precision optics, opto-mechanical assemblies and calibration facilities under one roof.
“This will significantly reduce manufacturing costs and lead-times, deepen India’s self-reliance in EO/IR technologies, and most importantly, allow us to accelerate R&D and take on more complex optical designs and next-generation payload architectures,” Kumar said.
India’s electro-optical and infrared surveillance market will grow from USD 4.3 billion today to over USD 15 billion by 2029. EON positions itself to serve this expanding market with indigenous, miniaturised payloads while competing globally.
“Ultimately, success means EON becoming a pillar of India’s optics and EO/IR ecosystem, enabling indigenous capability, export competitiveness, and a new supply chain for advanced imaging systems,” Kumar said.
The December flight will validate MIRA’s performance in actual orbit, exposing the telescope to solar radiation, cosmic rays and micrometeorite impacts for the first time. IN-SPACe prepares to certify the payload after integration with TakeMe2Space’s satellite and completion of satellite-level qualification tests.
Once launched and activated in orbit, MIRA will begin capturing multispectral imagery as part of the demonstration mission, giving India its first privately developed, miniaturised space telescope with proven on-orbit capabilities.
(Edited by Amit Vasudev)
