When Astrobase Technologies was selected in June 2026 as one of the first three startups to receive funding under the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre's Technology Adoption Fund, it marked more than a financing win for the Bengaluru-based company. For founders Neeraj Khandelwal and Devakumar Thammisetty, it was a public validation of a bet they had been making for years: that India's space future will not be built only by the state, but by private companies capable of manufacturing, scaling and operating the infrastructure around it.
Astrobase was chosen alongside SatSure Analytics and TakeMe2Space under IN-SPACe's Rs 500 crore TAF scheme, a signal that the country's space ecosystem is moving from policy opening to industrial execution. The company was only two years old at the time, yet it had already positioned itself as one of the more technically ambitious entrants in India's private space race.
The story of Astrobase begins at IIT Bombay, where Khandelwal and Thammisetty were classmates before their careers diverged. Thammisetty spent 13 years at ISRO, working on cryogenic engines and contributing significantly to CE-20, India's only cryogenic engine. Khandelwal, meanwhile, took the entrepreneurial route and co-founded cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX in 2018. Even then, he said, he had considered entering the space sector. The timing, however, was not right for private players.
That changed in 2020, when the space sector opened up to private participation and IN-SPACe was established as a single-window regulator-facilitator allowing companies to access ISRO facilities and services. Khandelwal said that was the moment he returned to the idea of building in space. His conviction is rooted in what he sees as a structural gap in India's space infrastructure: ISRO has built formidable technological capability, but the next phase, he argues, requires a private industrial base that can scale production and operations.
For Astrobase, that opportunity starts with launch vehicles and, more specifically, propulsion. The startup is developing a launch vehicle, but its immediate focus is the engine that will power it. In August, Astrobase unveiled Everest, its first full-flow staged combustion engine, a milestone that placed India in a very small club. With the achievement, India joined the United States, Russia and China as the fourth country to develop and build an FFSC engine.
An FFSC engine is among the most advanced forms of liquid rocket propulsion. In this design, 100% of both fuel and oxidiser pass through separate pre-burners before entering the main combustion chamber, unlike conventional engines where only a fraction of propellant is routed through the pre-burner system. The architecture is more efficient and better suited to reusable systems, which is why it is seen as a critical technology for the next generation of launch vehicles.
Astrobase says Everest is an 80-tonne-class, 800 kN engine designed and manufactured in Bengaluru. Khandelwal said the development process has been exacting, involving around 20 to 30 design iterations on average, with some individual components undergoing more than 50 iterations. That level of repetition reflects the complexity of building a system made up of hundreds of parts, each of which must perform reliably under extreme conditions.
The company is now moving through subsystem testing, including powerhead testing, as it works toward a reusable launch system built around indigenous propulsion. The ambition is not modest. Khandelwal wants India to develop the capacity to send 1,000 tons of payload into space every year by 2035, a target that would require a dramatic expansion in launch frequency, manufacturing depth and operational scale.
That vision places Astrobase at the intersection of policy, engineering and industrial strategy. India's space sector has long been defined by the achievements of ISRO, but the opening of the market to private players has created room for companies that can build the supply chain and systems needed for a larger commercial space economy. Astrobase is trying to be one of those companies.
Its early progress, and now its selection under IN-SPACe's adoption fund, suggests that the government sees value in backing startups that are not merely chasing downstream applications, but building the hard infrastructure beneath them. For Astrobase, the challenge ahead is formidable: turning an advanced engine into a reliable launch platform, and a launch platform into a scalable industrial capability.
If it succeeds, the company will not just have built a rocket engine. It will have helped define the base on which India's medium-lift, reusable launch era could stand.