HYDERABAD: The day when Indian tourists can explore space at the same cost as air travel, is not too far off, said Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder, of Skyroot Aerospace. Delivering a talk on ‘The Mettle and the Mantle — Indian Business Growth Trajectories’, organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Pawan said that space technology is exciting. Only 10 per cent of the universe is covered by mobile technology.
“We would like to focus on building smaller satellites weighing less than 500 kg. Around 100 to 150 satellites are launched every year all over the world and well over 1,000 are launched every year. In the next 10 years, this number is likely to go up to 40,000. So we will focus on how we can launch small satellites in a cost-effective manner,” he said.
Speaking about Skyroot’s plans, Pawan said they were working on Vikrant 1 which would be a bigger one that would put satellites into orbit. “Earth is overpopulated. Now outer space is being explored for human habitation. Internet through satellite will become as common as the internet we are using in the next five years,” Pawan informed.
Speakers at the event voiced happiness over the fact that two promising space technology startups from Telangana - Dhruva Space and Skyroot Aerospace located in Hyderabad and Sriharikota, were turning Hyderabad into a rocket-building aerospace hub.
Pavan Guntupalli, co-founder of Rapido--India’s first and fastest-growing bike taxi app with a whopping 25 million+ app downloads shared the company’s journey. He said that most people were sceptical that women would not use Rapido. However, this notion was proven wrong since 22 to 40 per cent of its users were women.