When I completed my BTech in aerospace engineering, there were very few options in the aerospace domain. ISRO had a great reputation, but it was hiring people with masters degrees. General Electric also considered people with masters degrees. GE was doing good work from its Bengaluru center. There were few CAD/CAM companies e.g. Fluent, Geometric and Intergraph, which used to hire aerospace engineers. DRDO was also hiring aerospace engineers, but it had a bad reputation. There were hardly any startups in the aerospace domain. I started my career from Intergraph as a software analyst.
It is good to see the employment opportunities for aerospace engineers increasing a lot now. There are broadly three categories of employers. The top pay masters are MNCs setting up centers in India. Boeing, Airbus, GE, Collins Aerospace are few well known names. Then there are a lot of public sector companies and reputed companies working in close collaboration with Indian defense sector e.g. DRDO, ISRO, BEL, Brahmos Aerospace, HAL, Adani Defense and Aerospace, L&T and Mahindra Aerospace. But I am surprised to see a lot of startups operating in this domain. This post will cover the companies in brief.
Startups are often small endeavors operating with shoestring budgets. Unless startups show signs of profitability, raising funds can be difficult. Aerospace engineering projects require substantial investments and take longer to become operational. A company building a launch vehicle must invest a lot in hardware, infrastructure, and testing. The risk factor is also higher compared to other domains. Therefore, raising funds for aerospace startups should be difficult. Yet, not only are there many startups, but many of those have been able to raise significant amounts of venture capital. I look forward to seeing these startups reach even greater heights and become pioneers in their work.
The following are some of the well known aerospace startups in India.
Agnikul Cosmos
Agnikul Cosmos is based out of Chennai. It is in the business of launching small commercial satellites into orbits. It is incubated at IIT Madras.
Agnikul has its own launchpad inside Sriharikota. It has developed technologies to 3D print rockets. Agnikul uses semi-cryogenic fuel for its rockets.
Its first launch will use a launch vehicle named Agnibaan. It is planned to be a two-stage launch vehicle carrying a payload of up to 10 Kg to around 700 Km altitude.
Dhruva Space
Dhruva Space is based out of Hyderabad. It provides full stack space engineering solutions. It provides launching nanosatellites support. It also offers remote ground stations which can be used by space missions for tracking their space assets.
Pixxel
Pixxel is based out of Bengaluru. Pixxel focuses on providing satellite data and analytics solutions.
Pixxel has placed his low earth orbit satellites. The satellites carry hyperspectral cameras. The data obtained from those cameras is used by agri-tech, oil and mining companies.
Pixxel is also working with Sarvam to develop and operate space based data centers.
Skyroot Aerospace
Skyroot Aerospace is based out of Hyderabad. It has recently raised a round of funding in May 2026 at 1.1 billion USD valuation. So it is the first spacetech unicorn of India. It is in the business of launching commercial satellites into orbits by using its rockets.
Skyroot was founded in 2018 by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka. The main goal was to make launching into space more accessible and routine.
Skyroot launched the Vikram-S rocket on 18th Nov 2022 from ISRO’s Sriharikota launchpad. Vikram-S was a single stage, spin stabilized solid fuel rocket. It was sub-orbital and was to remain in outer space with a flight time of less than 5 mins. The main goal was to test the systems and processes for Vikram-1 launch.
Vikram-1 is planned to be launched in May 2026. It is going to be followed by Vikram-2 which is currently under development. Skyroot’s plan is to build one rocket per month. It avoids direct competition of larger players like ISRO and SpaceX by making customized missions to place satellites with a small rocket. In contrast, SpaceX and ISRO do rideshare launches with large rockets and putting many small satellites into orbit along with few big ones.
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