Space Is the Future Civilization, Says Skyroot CEO at Defence Summit

Space will shape the next stage of human civilization, Skyroot Aerospace CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said at the NDTV Defence Summit during a session titled 'Ignition: India's Race to Own Space'.

"Humans are ever expanding as a species. I always say that if steel has built modern civilization, space is going to be the future civilization. We are just at the cusp of that transition," Chandana said.

He pointed to orbital data centres, communication satellites, space flights and space hotels as emerging possibilities, and said nearly all work requiring massive computing capacity is expected to happen in space.

Chandana said India is the third country in the world to have private launch capability. The rocket, he noted, was entirely designed and manufactured in India, with more than 90 per cent of its components sourced domestically. He described it as a deep-tech, high-tech product made fully in India, adding that over 70 per cent of the market is global.

Reflecting on the company's origins, he said Skyroot began eight years ago when there was no policy for the private space sector, no funding environment and no private-sector talent. The probability of success then was almost negative, he said, and raising capital remains difficult even today.

Today, he said, the firm is among a very small group of private companies worldwide to have successfully placed a rocket in orbit. He highlighted that the first attempt succeeded — a rare event — noting that even SpaceX's Falcon required four attempts before reaching orbit.

Chandana credited a team of more than 1,000 people with an average age of 28. The rocket, he said, has over 30,000 components that must all function in an extreme launch environment of vibration and heat, and the entire flight succeeded on the very first attempt.