Nowadays almost everyone knows about the great genius engineer, industrial designer, technology entrepreneur, and philanthropist Elon Musk. He is mostly famous for his futuristic ideas which are the basis of his billion-dollar companies like Tesla, The Boring Company, SpaceX, and many others. Among these companies, SpaceX stands out most because of its numerous world-changing achievements in the space industry. But have we considered if there are any Indian private space agencies that can give a challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX? This article will be about such Indian space agencies other than ISRO which are going to be a success in the future.

India has been able to showcase its space potential in recent years with some lowcost space missions like Chandrayan I and Magalyan with ISRO on its riding seat. Here are some Indian space  companies which are revolutionizing the aerospace industry of our country.

TEAM INDUS
Founded by Rahul Narayan Team Indus was a startup that assembled in 2010 aiming to win the Google Lunar X Prize announced in 2007. The competition ended in 2018 without a winner. Team Indus which was working on their lunar rover mission and was supposed to launch in 2020 most probably on a Falcon 9 rocket got canceled on 29th July 2019. The rover which was named ECA, an abbreviation for Ek Choti Si Asha (A Small Hope) is now used as the basis for a Ceres Robotics rover called Minikhod. Team Indus is currently headquartered in Bengaluru.

DHRUVA SPACE
In November 2012, Sanjay Nekkanti founded the startup Dhruva Space. The space startup specifically deals with the development of small satellites in commercial, agricultural, government, and academic markets. They have an experience of 6+ small satellite development. Dhruva has also signed an MoU to develop the follow-up mission to HAMSAT-1 launched in 2005. They are currently working towards the establishment of an AIT for microsatellites. They are currently headquartered in Hyderabad.

ASTROME
Astrome is fairly a new player in the space league which aims at developing products and services useful for space exploration. It is founded by Neha Satak and Prasad HL Bhat. Astrome is currently on a mission to make the internet more accessible to everyone in the developing world. They will be launching a constellation of 198 satellites into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Each of these satellites will carry their next-generation communication transponder. These satellites will cover most of the populated regions of the world to provide the internet.

BELLATRIX AEROSPACE
Bellatrix Aerospace was founded by Rohan M Ganapathy in 2015. The name of the company was given from a star named Bellatrix situated in the Orion constellation. Among all the Indian private space agencies, it is one of the most active ones. This Mysore-based startup offers to reduce satellite mission cost through its patented electric propulsion systems. Bellatrix is dedicated to offering its customers high reliability, short wait periods, and competitive costs. Bellatrix was developing two rockets ‘Chetak’ and ‘Garuda’ which will use next-gen construction material such as carbon composites to make them low-cost as well as reusable but the development is now on hold. Chetak will be a reusable rocket just like SpaceX rockets but Bellatrix has planed not to re-land the rocket rather they will use another technique that is not disclosed yet. Chetak will use Methalox(liquid methane + liquid oxygen) engine which will be first of its kind. Their electric satellite propulsion system called Microwave Electro-thermal Thruster (MET), which it claims is more efficient than traditional chemical thrusters and lasts longer will be used in their future missions. Currently, they are working with ISRO on electric propulsion. Bellatrix is one of the few companies in the world to work on electric propulsion. Seeing the potential of this company, Deepika Padukone has also invested in it.

SKYROOT AEROSPACE
Among all the space start-ups in India, Skyroot is the youngest one. It was founded in 2018 by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka. Before founding Skyroot they both worked for ISRO. Skyroot builds technologies for responsive, reliable, and economic access to space. VIKRAM, named after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian Space Program, is a series of launch vehicles developed by Skyroot especially crafted for the small satellite market. Skyroot has a target to launch Vikram by the end of December 2021 or by early 2022. The most interesting thing is that they are going to use a mobile launcher for these rockets rather than building a launchpad.

AGNIKUL COSMOS
This Chennai based company was founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM. They are currently working on their two-stage rocket called AGNIVAN. Their current mission is to implement affordable unmanned launches anywhere, anytime and to implement affordable manned translunar flybys in future. Another interesting future mission of this company is to launch rockets from balloons which means the rockets will be balloon-staged.
Chandrayaan 2 Module on GSLV MK III at Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second LaunchPad

 These companies have the potential to outreach any of the world’s space organizations. The achievements they will concur in the space industry will be remarkable for our country. With India’s first manned space mission ‘Gaganyaan’ to launch before August 2022, India will become mighty in the space industry with support from our own private space companies.