Indian New Space Startups

Author: Hari Prasath

Date : 01/08/2020
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 List of potential Indian space startups . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

3 Launcher sector startups and their details . . . . . . . . . . . 3

3.1 Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

4 Satellite sector startup and their details . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

4.1 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

5 Space Education Startups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

5.1 Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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1 Introduction

Space science always acts as an inspirational field for many engineers, scien-
tists and students around the world. In this 21st century, more countries are
aspiring to become a space fairing nation and as humans, to become a multi-
planetary species. Started early in this race and have already established in
the global market, India is a potential market for the space sector. With the
rise of New Space startups, there will be a development in both upstream
and downstream sector of space. India is also known for its cost effective
methods and technologies to achieve the desired mission requirements. This
review gives a detailed insight on a few well known startups that are working
towards satellite, rocket and space education in the Indian space sector.

2 List of potential Indian space startups

This section lists the potential Indian space startups. The names on the list
are taken from various online sources and linked-in. They are classified into
Launcher, Education and satellite startups.

Launcher sector startups Location

Agnikul Cosmos Chennai
Bellatrix Aerospace Bangalore
Skyroot Hyderabad
OmSpace Rocket and Exploration Gujarat
Vellon Space Madurai

Table 1: Launcher sector startups

Space education startups Location

Space kidz India Chennai
SSERD Bangalore
STAR Surat
SDNx Delhi
Spaceonova Lucknow
Brahmastra Aerospace Chennai

Table 2: Space education startups

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 Satellite sector startups Location
Dhruva Space Hyderabad
Manastu Space Bombay
Pixxel Pilani
Xovian Bangalore
Digantara Punjab
Astrome Bangalore
Kawa Space Mumbai
Satellize Mumbai
Azista Aerospace Ahmedabad
Ananth Technologies Hyderabad

Table 3: Satellite sector startups

3 Launcher sector startups and their details

Agnikul Cosmos [1] : Agnikul is planning for a highly customisable launch

vehicle called as "Agnibaan". It is capable of launching 100 kg of payload
into orbit with various configurations and from various locations depending
on the mission requirements. They are planning to launch its first flight in
the later part of 2022.The company is also planning to 3D print rockets to
bring down the cost of the engine.

Bellatrix Aerospace [2] : Bellatrix is planning to launch 150 kg to 700km

sun synchronous orbit in the launch vehicle named as "Chetak" with a
promised minimum wait period of 1 month between the successive flights.
They are also working on the satellite propulsion systems. They are planning
their first launch of Chetak in 2023.

Skyroot Aerospace [3] : Skyroot is developing a series of rockets called as

"Vikram" named after Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of India’s space
program. Vikram series of launchers can launch a payload from 225 to 580
kg to 500km SSPO(Sun synchronous polar orbit) and from 315 to 720 kg
to 45◦ inclination 500 km LEO(Low Earth orbit). Skyroot has scheduled to
launch its first flight in mid 2021 [4]. (COVID situation may possibly affect
the launch date)

OmSpace Rocket and Exploration : Director and CEO of Omspace,

Mr Ravindra Raj gave us some insights into their future plans and work
in the launcher sector. They are currently in the development phase of build-
ing a small reusable rocket that can be relaunched within 48 hours and will

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carry small cubesat and Nano satellites into LEO. They are working on an
advance electric launch system. Ravindra’s vision is to make humans a multi-
planetary species. He believes that his venture will be a small part in achiev-
ing something big. They are planning to launch their first rocket by 2022 if
everything goes well.

Vellon Space: Vellon space is planning on Rackoon technology to make

launch easier. It is also working on to make launch vehicle more compact in
future.

3.1 Observation

In the study by Northern Sky Research in 2018[22] , by 2027 around 6500

small satellites are expected to be launched into space for various reasons such
as communications, remote sensing and navigation purposes. On the other
hand, Starlink alone has planned to launch 12000 small satellites by 2027[6].
A very basic insight from this information would be that, with an
increasing demand for the small satellite sector, the requirement of
the small satellite launchers would be high in the future. This will
provide a huge customer database ranging from companies, governmental
projects and research institutions for the Indian private launcher sector.
The fig(1) is taken from the recent press release by Eurospace [5]. It can
be observed that though India has its own powerful launchers such as GSLV
and PSLV, India still needs more frequent launches and thus more launchers
to meet the global demand.
The fig(2) clearly depicts that Indian institution demand is still not meet
by the Indian launchers. Almost 1/3 percentage of the institutions used
European launch vehicles in (2015-2019) to launch their satellites into orbit.
This again gives more chance for the upcoming launcher companies to attract
the institutional launch necessities.

4 Satellite sector startup and their details

Dhruva Space: Established in 2012, Dhruva space is led by Sanjay Nekkanti

[7]. According to its website it has launched 6+ small satellites. They
are working in various Earth observation applications such as agriculture,
weather, tracking and biodiversity[8].

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 Figure 1: Global launch activity by launcher region [5]

Manastu Space : Manastu Space is developing a green propulsion tech-

nology [9] using Hydrogen Peroxide. In their website they declare that they
have invented a proprietary high temperature catalyst which can be used to
effectively decompose hydrogen peroxide thus increasing the efficiency and
making it less toxic. The areas of application of this new fuel can be in the
Satellite propulsion, lander propulsion system and reaction control system
for rockets and missiles. From the yourstory article[10], it can be observed
that the fuel provided by the Manastu Space is 60 percentage cheaper com-
pared to the current competitors in the market and 40 times less toxic than
Hydrazine.It is now in a test phase at its laboratory in Mumbai and at Shell
oil and gas campus at Bangalore.
Pixxel : Pixxel idea began with the Earth observation. But when the
founders Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal were not able to find recent
images for Earth observation they decided to launch their own nano satellite
constellation to provide more detailed images for services. They have signed
MoU with organisations in need of satellite images and with Agri-tech com-
panies in India [23]. They have already scheduled to launch their first test
satellite later this year. If successful they are planning to launch their first
constellation by the end of 2022.
Xovian [24]: Xovian started as a space education startup in India. Since

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 Figure 2: Institutional launch demand and supply [5]

2011 they are providing educational activities and practical experiences on

sounding rockets, CANSAT and high altitude ballooning. In the field of
satellite sector, they have developed satellite equipment such as S band patch
antenna, sun sensor and magnetic torquer rod in association with PES uni-
versity.
Digantara: Incubated in IISc(Indian Institute of science) and led by 2 young
entrepreneurs Anirudh Sharma and Rahul Rawat, it recently received 25
lakh Indian rupee to develop and work on India’s first in-orbit space debris
monitoring and tracking system. The company also plans to develop space
tech services such as satellite component design, payload design and cubesat
design in future[11].
Astrome : Astrome is working on an advance communication technology
called as "SPACENET" which will use their patented millimeter wave tech-
nology to provide 180 Gbps aggregated uplink & downlink data capacity in
micro satellites. It can provide an internet speed of 400Mbps even to remote
areas and is 2000 times cheaper than the existing state-of-art terrestrial net-
works. SpaceNet can also provide high speed internet to the busiest shipping
and air routes according to their website [12].
Kawa Space: Kawa space has already received a contract to build more

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than 27 satellites for the Indian government and ISRO. They have already
launched one satellite into orbit. It also received funding from Paytm founder
Vijay Shekhar Sharma [13]. It is also working on a cloud platform which offers
easier software integration depending on the mission.
Satellize: According to their website [14] Satellize is the first India’s private
company to have 2 satellites orbiting the Earth currently. They are also
planning to launch 10 satellites via SpaceShare program into space with
ISRO in the upcoming months. They also provide solutions and also help
space companies flight-test their components.
Azista Aerospace: Azista Aerospace has teamed up with Berlin space tech-
nologies to manufacture 250 satellites a year. The construction of the facility
began as early as 2017. It is planned that by 2021 it will reach its target
production rate [15].

Figure 3: Azista and BST Joint venture [15]

It can be observed from the fig(3) that both Berlin Space technologies and
Azista Aerospace have agreed to come together by sharing their technology
and experience in the field of space science. The fig(4) shows the layout of
the satellite assembly plan. The parallel clean room setup will help in the
assembly of satellite in a week. The next iteration would be to add 20 parallel
clean rooms thus increasing the production capability up to 1000+ satellites
a year.
Ananth Technologies : Ananth technologies[16] is already supplying sys-
tems to the Indian Space research organisation. Recently they signed deals
to launch 6 foreign-owned satellites in India. They also opened a full fledged
satellite making facility in the month of February to manufacture 50 to 250
kg satellites for Swedish and French customers. They offer end to end ser-
vices from integrating the satellite, identify the rocket and also to launch

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 Figure 4: Factory Layout Azista - BST [15]

them from the Indian soil.

4.1 Observations

After analysing the growth of satellite sector in India the following observa-
tions were made.

• Mass manufacturing of satellites is cheaper in India and attracts inter-

national customers.
• Companies in the field of Earth observation and services are very less
compared to other nations. Figure:5 shows the number of EO com-
panies per country. It can be easily observed that India should foster
more EO private companies.
• New initiatives such as monitoring of the space debris, cleaner propul-
sion system for satellites, testing of new communication systems and
development in the software can be observed in the satellite sector.
• Though a few new space startups are working to make progress, more
startups must rise in the space sector to meet the global demand for
satellite manufacturing. Almost around 300 companies provide com-
ponents to ISRO. There is a possibility of such companies to scale up
their facility to directly play a major role in the satellite manufacturing
for the New Space Sector.

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 Figure 5: EO companies per country [17]

5 Space Education Startups

Space Kidz India: Space kidz India is a Chennai based educational organ-
isation started in 2012 by Dr Srimathy Kesan [19].Since then they have been
efficiently fostering students in the field of STEM. It is one of the leading
space education startup in the south India. The team consists mainly of stu-
dents led by the CTO Rifath Sharook. They have already launched 2 cube
satellites into orbit. Kalamsat V2 had the privilege to be the first launched
satellite in the PSLV stage 4. They have developed a recent study program
called as "skilabz" where the students can learn electronics and computer
science in an effective way. Skilabz program consists of a 12 month kit where
a student can learn new things and apply it practically.
SSERD: Society for Space Education Research and Development is a space
education startup by Nikhitha C and Sujay [20]. They are working hard to
achieve their motive "Educate Inspire Innovate" .They have also part-
nered with a lot of organisations worldwide to foster education. They conduct
online classes and have a lot of space educational activities such as "Astro
Space camp","Young minds" and "Sky gazing Astronomy". They also have

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their own internship division where they help students to develop their skills.
STAR : Space Technology and Aeronautical Rocketry is a space educational
startup with their primary motto ’Space is for everyone’ [17]. Established
by Sunny Kabrawala, STAR aims to work on launch vehicles in the future.
They have reached around 31000+ students via space education. They have
practical sessions on model rocketry, workshop on cansat and also provide
industrial visit opportunities to students of India.
SDNx : Space development nexus estqblished by Sanjay Rathee is one of the
leading space education startups in India [18]. They are working on multiple
research works related to space sector such as satellite science and technology,
rocket science and technology, space communication and technology, space
robotics, astronomy and space sciences.
Spaceonova: Spaceonova was founded by Shivam with a great vision, that
by 2025 he wants to make sure that each and every child of India should
have enough resources & guidance to be able to pursue careers in any field of
space sciences irrespective of their background. They have already reached
around 18000+students via their online webinar and space educational out-
reach services.
Brahmastra Aerospace: Brahmastra Aerospace is a Chennai based re-
cent startup by Subash.They are conducting various online competitions and
workshops. They are planning to develop in the areas of research and devel-
opment in the future.

5.1 Observation

With the rise of space activities globally, more qualified students are needed
for the sector in future. To develop their interest towards space sector many
strong space education industries are needed. All the space education compa-
nies follow a common pattern such as organising workshops on development
of cubesats, model rocketry and other out reach programs. They also have
their own research and development center. The main goal of these star-
tups should be to reach a lot of Indian students in a more effective manner.
Awareness and the ease of learning space education during schooling will
make them more interested to work towards space sector in the future, thus
providing more qualified work force in the space sector field.

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6 Conclusion
This report dealt with a few startups that are working hard to establish them-
selves in the various sub domains such as satellites, launcher and educational
part of space. Indian Space sector will see a drastic growth in the upcoming
years.With the privatisation of the space in India and on the formation of
proper bill, most of the Indian Space startups will be benefited and will meet
the global demand in the future.

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References
[1] https://www.agnikul.in
[2] bellatrixaerospace.com
[3] skyroot.in
[4] https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/science/skyroot-
aerospace-this-indian-startup-will-launch-rockets-and-send-satellites-
into-space-by-2021.html
[5] https://eurospace.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/press-release-ff-
2020-final-july-23.pdf
[6] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/26/755/satellite-
constellations-orbiting-earth-quintuple/
[7] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/hyderabad-based-dhruva-
space-only-india-space-tech-company-to-present-at-interplanetary-small-
satellite-conference-2020/article31600013.ece
[8] https://www.dhruvaspace.com/
[9] http://www.manastuspace.com/greenprop.htmlmsg-box8-5c
[10] https://yourstory.com/2019/06/iit-bombay-spacetech-startup-green-
satellite-isro
[11] https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/digantara-space-startup-
low-earth-debris-monitoring-system-518764.html
[12] https://www.astrome.co/
[13] https://inc42.com/buzz/kawa-space-gets-funding-from-paytms-vijay-
shekar-sharma/
[14] https://satellize.com/
[15] https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4564&context=smallsat
[16] https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/aerospace-
firm-ananth-technologies-to-build-foreign-owned-satellites-in-
india/74069542
[17] https://earsc.org//wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Annual-
report_20182019_FINAL.pdf

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[18] starlabsurat.com

[19] spacedevelopmentnexus.com

[20] www.spacekidzindia.in

[21] www.sserd.org

[22] https://www.nsr.com/small-satellites-flying-high-with-37-billion-
market-and-6500-satellites-to-launch-by-2027/

[23] https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/pixxel-aiming-big-
to-put-india-on-the-global-space-map-says-awais-ahmed-founder-and-
ceo/1965321/

[24] https://www.xovian.co.in/

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