Company builds small satellite constellations for earth observation and other scientific applications

Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space, which has recently won the National Start-Up Awards 2020 in the ‘space’ category, is planning to set up a large assembly, integration and testing (AIT) facility for manufacturing of satellites in Telangana.

The company builds small satellite constellations for earth observation and other scientific applications. The company’s constellation of low-earth orbit satellites promises to reduce the cost and time taken to set up the necessary infrastructure. The company currently has a facility in Begumpet to cater to ground station support needs.

Sanjay Nekkanti, founder and CEO, Dhruva Space, told Telangana Today, “To cater to our growth needs, we are looking at a larger facility in Hyderabad, as the city has an encouraging ecosystem for the aerospace and defence sector. We are shifting our registered office from Bangalore to Hyderabad. We had raised Rs 4.5 crore last year and we are now keen to raise about Rs 100 crore in the next one year. We want to create a 20,000-30,000 sq ft facility and are keen to have State government’s support as an investor to help us scale up.”

Dhruva plans to make satellites at scale, with a capacity to make about 300 satellites a year. He added, “We are a full stack space engineering solutions’ company focused on satellites, launch and ground station support. We deal with small satellites of up to 200-250 kg class. We build deployers that act as an interface between the launch vehicles and the satellites. We build the entire ground segment for our customers. We are application agnostic and are specialised in designing satellites.”

In addition to designing satellites, orbit & constellation, the company builds the satellites, finds the right launch provider for the budget, obtains required orbital timelines, and provides ground station support to customers, either using their existing in-house infrastructure or setting up new infrastructure.

Dhruva is actively engaged with ISRO for launching satellites on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). “We have always received good support from the ISRO, which is helping us to constantly innovate,” Nekkanti added.

The company which was established in 2012 has been invited by the European Space Agency’s Business Incubation Centre at Vienna, Austria, for incubation. “We are going to begin operations in Vienna by the end of 2020 or early 2021. In addition to India, we are seeing a lot of opportunities in Europe as well as North America. The advent of small satellite technology is enabling several countries to come out with national space programmes and initiatives. We see an opportunity here,” he informed.