India, July 28 -- Modern satellites are producing more data than ever, and the gap between what they capture and what reaches the ground is widening. According to a research paper that tracks this, a single modern satellite's daily data output is at over 1-2 TB, but with current radio-based downlink, operators often retrieve only a fraction of that before the satellite passes out of range.

The problem is scale. There were over 11,700 active satellites in orbit as of mid-2025, up dramatically from a few thousand just years earlier, and the number keeps climbing as constellations expand.

Astrogate Labs, one of the Indian startups working on this problem, points out that over 25,000 small satellites are expected to be in orbit by 2030. Mor...