India, July 21 -- In a three-room lab in North Bengaluru, a small black box of two feet by two feet simulates the space environment. It's the play lab for Jubin Jacob, Gimbal Space's optical engineer, who experiments with a star tracker inside it. Jacob's in his early 20s and this is his first job out of college. The star tracker is a funnel-shaped camera backed by an algorithm. It is the size of a small flowerpot and instructs a spacecraft on which way to point to do its work.

The star tracker looks like a simple design, but has had extensive electrical, mechanical, optical and software work to become something that can map space and instruct a satellite to look at a certain point. "It is one of first India-made star trackers," says Dha...