Washington, Dec 19 An Indian team proposing a sovereign, phased-array satellite internet infrastructure to expand broadband access across remote regions has emerged as a global winner of NASA’s 2025 International Space Apps Challenge, the US space agency announced.
The Chennai-based team, Photonics Odyssey, won the Most Inspirational Award for reimagining satellite internet as a national public infrastructure rather than a private service.
The project aims to reduce ground dependency and help connect more than 700 million people in India who currently lack access to broadband connectivity. The winning team members, according to NASA Space Apps, are Manish D., M. K., Prasanth G., Rajalingam N., Rashi M., and Sakthi R.
NASA said the 2025 edition of its flagship global hackathon brought together more than 114,000 participants across 551 local events in 167 countries and territories, making it one of the most significant international STEM collaborations organised by the agency.
The winners were selected from more than 11,500 project submissions and evaluated by judges from NASA and its partner organisations.
“The Space Apps Challenge puts NASA’s free and open data into the hands of explorers around the world,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Indian American students and participants of Indian origin also featured prominently among the winners, reflecting the strong presence of the Indian diaspora in global science and technology innovation.
The Best Use of Data Award went to Resonant Exoplanets. This US-based team developed an AI-powered system capable of automatically analysing large volumes of telescope and satellite data to identify exoplanets and detect possible biosignatures.
The team includes Adhvaidh S., Gabriel S., Jack A., and Sahil S., and worked on the challenge “A World Away: Hunting for Exoplanets with AI.” Their system ingests datasets such as spectra from missions including the James Webb Space Telescope, enabling automated analysis rather than manual identification.
Another winning project with Indian-origin participation was Astro Sweepers, which received the Galactic Impact Award at a universal event. The team — Harshiv T., Pragathy S., Pratik J., Sherlin D., Yousra H., and Zienab E. — developed an end-to-end orbital debris compliance and risk intelligence platform that automatically ingests public orbital data to generate debris assessment reports and compute a risk index for resident space objects.
The project addresses operational, regulatory, and environmental challenges associated with the commercialisation of low Earth orbit.
The winners were selected from more than 11,500 project submissions and evaluated by judges from NASA and its partner organisations.
Launched in 2012, the International Space Apps Challenge is NASA’s annual global hackathon designed to engage citizens worldwide in solving real-world problems using the agency’s open data. It has grown into one of the world’s largest collaborative platforms for STEM innovation.
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