Dhruva Space's maiden satellites deorbit successfully after circling Earth 15,000 times

Dhruva Space is also setting up 2.8 lakh sq ft facility in Hyderabad for assembly, integration of satellite infra (Image: Dhruva Space)

Hyderabad-based space tech startup Dhruva Space's maiden mission which comprised Thybolt-1 and Thybolt-2 satellites, have successfully and securely deorbited after a combined 15,000 orbits around the Earth.

The satellites were launched aboard ISRO's PSLV C54 in November 2022. The payload used on the Thybolt satellites is a Store-and-Forward payload, which is used to receive messages from sensor nodes or remote ground stations.

Thybolt satellites is built on top of one of the three satellite platforms that have been developed by Dhruva Space -- P-DoT. P DoT is a picosatellite platform (satellites weighing 1-24kg); P30 is a nanosatellite platform (satellites weighing 1-30kg); and P90 are satellites weighing up to 300 kg. The satellites were built entirely in Hyderabad with the assistance of approximately 20 MSMEs.

Sanjay Nekkanti, CEO of Dhruva Space, congratulated the team and said that in-house developed P-DoT satellite platform enabled advancements in research, constellation development and application-agnostic use by customers.

"There is much ahead, including the establishment of our 280,000 sq-ft spacecraft manufacturing facility, and our first hosted payload mission LEAP-1, just around the corner, using our 30kg nanosatellite," said Nekkanti.

The startup is working on its first hosted payload mission LEAP-1, which is slated to launch via ISRO later this year. This mission is set to be launched onboard Dhruva Space's P-30 nanosatellite, of which the platform and key subsystems have been space-qualified via ISRO's PSLV C58 POEM-3 on January 1, 2024, through Dhruva Space's LEAP-TD mission.

The 12-year-old startup, co-founded by Nekkanti, Krishna Teja Penamakuru, Abhay Egoor, and Chaitanya Dora Supureddy, makes satellite infrastructure/platforms that can be launched from any rocket, equipped with any payload, and operated from ground stations anywhere in the world.

In April, Dhruva raised around $9.3 million (Rs 78 crore) from a clutch of investors, including Indian Angel Network Alpha Fund and Blue Ashva Capital, bringing its Series A corpus to around $14 million (Rs 123 crore).

The fundraise came at a time when there was a significant policy push from the government to open up the private space sector. It also highlighted the growing value of India's space economy, which regulator IN-SPACe estimates will touch $44 billion by 2023.

The startup said the funds would be ploughed into the company's 2.8 lakh sq ft satellite infra manufacturing facility in Hyderabad. The money will be used for acquisitions and improving product offerings.