Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), the flagship initiative of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), has reached a milestone with the signing of the 250th contract, the first one under the Mission DefSpace, and the 100th SPRINT (Navy) contract, on May 15.
The first iDEX contract of Mission DefSpace was exchanged between Additional Secretary (Defence Production), CEO Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) T. Natarajan and CEO InspeCity Arindrajit Chowdhary, one of the winners of the “micropropulsion system for cubesats” challenge, a Ministry statement said. This challenge is being led by the Defence Space Agency. “InspeCity is developing a gas-based (compact micropropulsion system) system. This technology, once developed, can be integrated with other satellites, including the cubesat swarm being developed under Mission DefSpace,” the MoD’s statement said.
Cubesats are a class of small satellites (smallsats), which are modular, low-cost, and easy to manufacture, integrate, and launch. They form a critical component for launch-on-demand capabilities. For imagery, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and communication purposes, cubesats need to be precisely aligned, hence there is a requirement for a compact micropropulsion system for precise manoeuvring and orbit correction, the statement explained.
Mission DefSpace, with 75 ‘Defence Space Challenges’ to be addressed by the private sector, was launched during DefExpo at Gandhinagar in October 2022.
Navy contract
The 100th SPRINT (Navy) contract was exchanged with Siliconia Technologies Private Limited, the winner of the challenge which envisaged the development of a prototype that is “a lightweight ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) based communication system using software-defined antenna for Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit and Geostationary satellite communication,” the statement said. “The solution by Siliconia can provide multiple independent receiver, transmitter sources that are essential in phased-array radars, typically used in satellite tracking.”
Under the SPRINT initiative, a total of 75 challenge statements for the Indian industry were unveiled in July 2022, and the initiative aims at inducting at least 75 technologies and products into the Navy by August 2023.
Till date, iDEX has received more than 7,500 applications from individual innovators; Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and start-ups under various categories of challenges like ‘Defence India Start-up Challenge’, and ‘Prime and Open Challenge’. iDEX has also been able to generate thousands of jobs and attract India’s talent back to the country, the Ministry added.
