NEW Delhi: A day may not be far away when Indian satellites manufacture pharmaceuticals in space and return them to Earth. While it may sound futuristic, this remarkable possibility was recently shared with Prime Minister Narendra Modi by a young CEO of a space start-up.
An Indian space start-up is working on satellites capable of travelling into space, manufacturing pharmaceuticals there and returning them to Earth.
A young CEO, who introduced himself as Antariksha, and his co-founder Monika, who attended an interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 21, informed him about the venture.
The CEO said his company was India’s first space-pharma start-up. “We are making satellites that can go to space, manufacture pharmaceuticals there, and bring them back from space,” he told the Prime Minister.
The start-up is developing satellites capable of manufacturing pharmaceutical products in the microgravity environment of space before bringing them back to Earth.
Another CEO assured the Prime Minister that his start-up was working towards developing the capacity to launch at least one rocket a month, with the longer-term goal of launching one rocket a week and eventually several rockets a day.
Elated and visibly confident about the capabilities of India’s young space start-ups, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his recent interaction with 20 CEOs and founders of space start-ups, encouraged them to create an aura that would make people across the world look to India to build their future.
In a video of the Prime Minister’s interaction released on National Space Day on August 23, Modi was heard encouraging the CEOs, saying, “We should create an aura that makes people across the world look to India to build their future.”
During the interaction, the Prime Minister also told the CEOs, “We have to connect many people, and as Mehta said, now people who had gone abroad are coming back. I believe we must create such an aura that people all over the world feel that if they want to build their life, they should come to Hindustan. Join some Indian start-up. Join some Indian space agency. I firmly believe that the entire talent pool, like a magnet, because of you, we can attract, and that can become a very great strength for us.”
Hailing India’s talent pool as remarkable, the Prime Minister said, “We can establish ourselves very fast as we are highly competitive in terms of cost; our talent and the risk-taking capacity of our people are also very high.”
At one point during the interaction, as shown in a video clip, the Prime Minister told one of the CEOs, after hearing him out, “You have shown courage in a new field. The most important thing is that you trusted the government’s word. My view has always been that whatever decisions we take, we must remain consistent in them; we must not keep changing them again and again, so that anyone who wants to take a risk can have confidence that, fine, if something goes wrong, it will be because of my mistake, but no one will abandon me. And this was our effort — to create that trust.”
A CEO of a space start-up also claimed before the Prime Minister that his company was India’s first space-tech unicorn. “On July 18, we successfully launched India’s first private rocket, ejecting satellites. And this is just the beginning. Generally, we say this is just a warm-up for Skyroot; it is only the start. By the middle of next year, we will be doing one launch per month,” the CEO was heard telling the Prime Minister.
The CEO also emphasised that the company had developed an engine that ranks among the most advanced engines in the world.
“Now the world must be searching for India’s start-ups, wondering who is behind this. Because when there is a breakthrough, immediately people’s attention goes there,” the Prime Minister said.
During the interaction, one of the 20 CEOs informed the Prime Minister that Indians working in the US and Europe now wanted to return to India after witnessing the country’s recent progress and growing capabilities in the space sector.
“Our citizens who are in the US and Europe want to come back and work with us,” the CEO said, adding that the company had a vision to establish a global ground-station network within the next 18 months.
Appearing visibly confident and expressing his trust in India’s new space start-ups and the initiatives undertaken by young people in the sector, the Prime Minister said, “In cost we are very competitive, in talent there is no question at all, and the risk-taking capacity of our people is anyway greater. And because of that we can very quickly make our place.”
Outlining another ambitious plan, one of the CEOs said, “This robotic spacecraft will go to space, physically capture the dead satellite and remove it from orbit. We are the first Indian company working on docking and refuelling technologies, with the vision of establishing a fuel station in space.”
