The Final Countdown

How a bunch of startups is battling the odds to launch a new space tech age for India

- SAMREEN WANI AND NAINI THAKER

Seven years ago, Pawan Kumar Chandana left his job as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to set up Skyroot Aerospace with Naga Bharath Daka.

Chandana and Daka were colleagues at Isro. And now they are poised to return to their alma mater—in a manner of speaking. As you read this, Skyroot is counting down to the launch of its rocket, Vikram I, from Isro’s launchpad in Sriharikota.

It is a four-stage rocket meant to put into space small satellites, which constitute a burgeoning market. The first stage of Vikram I is reported to have reached the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, named after a former chairman of India's space agency. What ensues is a round of integration after which, in a month or so, the final validation will start for the rocket to blast off for its inaugural flight. If all goes to plan, it will become India’s first privately built multistage orbital vehicle to reach space.

"I wanted to be an entrepreneur since childhood but became a scientist at Isro," Chandana tells Forbes India during an interview at his Hyderabad headquarters. "Now it is a marriage of two passions."

As marriages go, this one was a leap of faith. Back then, India’s space sector was steered exclusively by Isro, the agency celebrated for its frugal engineering and spectacular, if occasional, space missions.

That changed in 2020, when the government opened up the space sector, allowing private companies to participate in all space-related activities and created the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACE) as a single-window mechanism for non-government entities to access Isro’s facilities. Building further on this, the Indian Space Policy 2023 provided an overarching framework, with operating guidelines, zoning laws, and regulatory certainty.