Spare a minute to read what Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, once said, “People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually, it will, I think, by itself degrade, actually. You look at great civilizations like Ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And then the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.”
He believes, space technology could have already taken us to Mars and beyond if more and more people had worked towards it, collectively, and not just government agencies. While building SpaceX, he proved a lot of people wrong, once who firmly believed that Space-tech is not for private ventures to explore.
In India, ISRO is no doubt doing an excellent job. India is also among the very few countries that have planned to have its own space station by 2030. As per a report by Research and Markets – The Space Industry, was valued at US$ 360 billion in 2018, and this is projected to grow to value US$ 558 billion by 2026. Therefore, these are all good reasons to launch a startup in this domain and revolutionise space technology.
Let’s take a look at some of the Indian space technology companies that are making the news.
Kawa Space Tech
The company designs and operates earth observation satellite constellations. It serves customers in financial services, government, strategic risk management and agriculture. Kawa Space is based out of Mumbai, Maharashtra, and was founded in 2019 by Kris Nair and Bala M.
Highlights
The 16 member team has won the contract to build over 27 satellites for ISRO.
It is backed by Paytm founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
What does the co-founder Kris Nair say on the subject?
Nair says, “Space is a very large opportunity. We have 300+ companies in India focusing on this market, they have been operating their businesses and doing remarkable things for the last 30+ years. Most have been supporting critical missions of ISRO & other agencies for a very long time. We are also using a dozen of them for our missions”.
Dhruva Space Tech
Dhruva Space which is based out of Hyderabad, Telangana, was founded in 2012 by Sanjay Srikanth Nekkanti and Narayan Prasad. The company is working on to build and launch small satellites in the 10-100 kg range. Do you ask, why? Two reasons: It cost less and have a turnaround time of nearly 18 months.
Highlights:
Dhruva Space seems positive in its endeavour of building and making private commercial satellite, a norm in India. The company is anticipating to build about 70 small satellites that can be launched as a constellation, for its potential customers.
What does the CSO, Abhishek Raju, has to say on the subject?
Abhishek Raju, chief strategy officer of the company, says “We are trying to prove our hypothesis that space need not be expensive, and a lot of frugal innovation is possible.”
Exseed Space
Exseed Space was founded by Kris Nair and Asshar Farhan in 2017 and his headquartered at Mumbai, Maharashtra. They develop small satellite platforms with a major focus on assembly, integration, operation, and testing of satellites.
Highlights
The company became the first private Indian company to put a satellite in space in December 2018.
There are Astrome, Bellatrix Aerospace and many more companies that are doing an incredible job in innovating space technology in India, that we shall discuss in further write-ups .
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