An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur student has won a national space-innovation challenge with an artificial intelligence concept that could help satellites get out of the way of dangerous orbital debris in seconds rather than hours. Adeetya Uppal, a fourth-year Aerospace Engineering dual-degree (BTech and MTech) student from Navi Mumbai, has been named the winner of the 2026 Viasat: Space for Good India Challenge, a STEM innovation competition run by satellite communications company Viasat in partnership with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe).
Uppal’s entry, DRISHTI: AI Guardian for Sustainable Orbits, was selected at the finals in New Delhi by a panel of space industry experts, government representatives and satellite technology leaders. He will receive ₹5 lakh to take the idea further. Shashank Kumar Singh and Aryan Gupta finished second and third, and the top three receive cash prizes to keep building their solutions.
What DRISHTI is designed to do
With thousands of satellites now supporting navigation, communications, weather forecasting and disaster response, even a small fragment of debris can disable an operational spacecraft. Spotting debris is only part of the problem: operators must decide whether an object is a real threat, work out a new trajectory and then execute an avoidance manoeuvre, a process that conventional warning protocols can leave to human operators for hours.
- Autonomous detection: AI monitors for debris that poses a collision risk to a satellite.
- Manoeuvre planning: the system calculates an optimal evasion trajectory.
- Real-time commands: avoidance instructions are transmitted over Viasat’s satellite network.
- Intended impact: faster responses, lower fuel use and better protection for orbital infrastructure.
The concept grows out of Uppal’s research on autonomous spacecraft proximity operations, the branch of aerospace engineering that deals with spacecraft approaching, navigating around and keeping safe distances from other objects. During the challenge he was mentored by Viasat’s Ganesh Ramalingam.
“I have been working on problems related to space debris, which paved a way for me to give a shot at automating the collision avoidance,” Uppal said, adding that the programme gave him a fresh perspective on how to build and present ideas and look at problems from different angles.
Classroom research meets the space economy
The six finalists, chosen after a multi-month evaluation of entries from university students across India, tackled problems ranging from satellite-enabled disaster warnings and crop-health monitoring from space to emergency communications during natural disasters. Participants worked with Viasat engineers and industry mentors to shape their ideas into practical applications.
Gautam Sharma, Managing Director, Viasat India, said the finalists had looked beyond the technology itself to how space-enabled solutions can address real challenges facing people, communities and industries.
For India’s higher education system, the result is another sign of how student research is feeding a fast-growing private space sector opened up by IN-SPACe. It is worth noting that DRISHTI remains a student-led concept for now: the public announcement does not detail the data used to train the system or whether it has been tested against real satellite trajectories. Proving it can work reliably in the demanding conditions of orbit will be the next test, and the prize money is meant to help with exactly that.
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