BUILT FOR SPACE

SPACE IS EMERGING AS THE NEW LABORATORY FOR BIOTECHNCOLOGY, AND INDIAN STARTUPS ARE POWERING THE COUNTRY'S AMBITION TO LEAD IN SPACE BY 2047.

- BY JOE C. MATHEW

IMAGINE A SUITCASE-SIZED box launched into space that autonomously manufactures medicines in zero-gravity conditions and soft lands on earth once the product is ready.

No astronaut, no space station, just a small, reusable satellite, with all controls/monitoring taking place at the ground station.

It's not sci-fi, but what Antariksh Parichha, an Odisha-based entrepreneur in his late 20s, is attempting to do. Parichha's Serendipity Space aims to launch satellites that will spend a month in orbit, and then return to earth with pharma products. "Technologically [speaking], we have already created this lab, and tested the production of an anticancer drug inside it, completely autonomous. You just have to upload the materials and it works on its own. The next stage is to qualify for taking this to space, which should happen in a couple of months," says Parichha. The startup recently raised an undisclosed sum as its first pre-seed funding.

The concept of conducting research and carrying out manufacturing on a limited scale under microgravity conditions in space is not new. The time-tested approach has been to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) to undertake such lab-scale manufacturing or research missions, and return after a specific period with the products. Developed nations have done these several times, but not on a regular, commercial scale.

Sending astronauts to space is very expensive; the time available is very limited; and if you have the results of the first mission, a followup study or project can happen only when your next turn comes, which could even take years. Serendipity aims to reduce this cost, the time frame and the gap between successive missions by removing the human from the loop, and building a small pharmaceuticals factory that can be launched more frequently, operate on its own, and can be controlled from earth.