How a Bengaluru startup is taking a leaf out of the quick-commerce playbook to launch rockets on demand  

In 2021, even as the world was reeling under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new business proposition was being tested in India: quick grocery deliveries. What followed was a rapid rise of the quick-commerce segment, mirroring the breakneck pace it promised for everyday deliveries.

Yet, quick commerce did not become “quick” because delivery riders suddenly started driving faster. It built an infrastructure designed around speed: inventory closer to customers, dense fulfilment networks, and rapid processing. Now, what if the same infrastructure-first logic were applied to space? 

Astrobase Space Technologies, a Bengaluru-based space tech startup founded in 2024 by former ISRO scientist Devakumar Thammisetty and CoinDCX co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal, is perhaps pursuing a similar logic: to make launch capacity available at a frequency and scale that can support a rapidly expanding satellite economy. Just as quick commerce is fundamentally an infrastructure business disguised as a delivery business, Astrobase aspires to make “launch-on-demand” an infrastructure business rather than a rocket business. Its proposition is unusually ambitious: prepare and launch a dedicated mission within 15 days of an urgent national requirement. 

But how does Astrobase plan to achieve it? "When we say a dedicated mission can be launched within 15 days, it reflects a high level of readiness across the launch vehicle, payload integration, and ground infrastructure, without requiring the launch campaign to begin from the ground up. Key vehicle elements, including booster stages, are maintained through a defined recovery, refurbishment, and keep-alive programme to ensure their readiness for subsequent missions," says Khandelwal.

The plan involves manufacturing and maintaining upper-stage hardware in advance. "Once the customer payload is available, it undergoes the required preparation and integration activities in accordance with the mission operations sequence."

Astrobase's launch infrastructure is also designed to support rapid turnaround and on-demand missions, he claims. "Dedicated teams oversee vehicle, payload, and ground-system readiness, while the relevant systems undergo final checks and preparations once a mission is scheduled. In essence, the 15-day capability is enabled by maintaining flight hardware and ground infrastructure in a state of readiness, supported by streamlined integration processes and dedicated teams for rapid mission execution."

The company recently unveiled EVEREST, an 800-kN full-flow staged-combustion (FFSC) LOX-methane engine that it describes as India’s first privately built engine. The announcement marks a step towards Astrobase’s larger ambition: creating an integrated launch ecosystem spanning propulsion, manufacturing, testing, vehicle integration and orbital infrastructure. “EVEREST is not a standalone technology demonstration; it represents the foundation of an industrial capability that India will increasingly need,” says Khandelwal.

That industrial capability is being built around scale. Astrobase plans to manufacture up to 50 EVEREST engines a year, with each unit producing 80 tons of thrust and its facilities eventually capable of manufacturing and hot-firing roughly one high-thrust engine a week. It plans to build and test about 20 engines before its first orbital flight. Inspired by the SpaceX playbook, the EVEREST engine is also designed for reusability, with a target of more than 50 uses. 

The numbers are significant because rocket development is an iterative business. Khandelwal says designs are unlikely to work perfectly on the first attempt, making the speed at which a company can move between design, manufacturing and testing critical. Astrobase is therefore keeping much of the process in-house, including advanced manufacturing using what it describes as India’s largest industrial 3D printer.

Its testing infrastructure is being built around the same philosophy. The company’s facility in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur is designed to handle high-flow cryogenic fluids, including liquid oxygen and methane. EVEREST uses methane as fuel and the full-flow staged-combustion cycle, a technically complex architecture that is designed to extract greater efficiency from the propellants. “Methane is the next-gen fuel for rocket engines,” says Khandelwal. 

The company has ambitious targets. It aims for an initial annual launch capacity of 100 tonnes per annum by 2030 and more than 1,000 tonnes by 2035 through a rapid launch cadence. Currently, India launches about 9.5 tonnes annually, compared with roughly 2,700 tonnes in the U.S. 

Meanwhile, Astrobase’s medium-lift vehicle is also being planned to carry up to eight tonnes to a 200-km orbit. The first flight is targeted for December 2028, with reusability of the medium-lift vehicle planned by 2030.

The company has already found the government’s backing. It is among the recipients of IN-SPACe’s Technology Adoption Fund, which supports development of the 800-kN engine. “TAF was set up precisely to enable the private sector to undertake such innovative technologies,” said Rajeev Jyoti, director, Technical Directorate, IN-SPACe. Astrobase has raised about $10.6 million in two rounds of private seed funding, according to Tracxn.

For Astrobase, however, technology is only one part of the equation. The company argues that India needs clearer and more quantifiable demand to attract the capital required to build the sector at global scale. India’s space economy, valued at $9 billion as of August 2026, is projected to reach $40–45 billion over the next decade. Capital follows revenue visibility, Khandelwal argues. That means building domestic anchor demand while looking overseas for customers.

The company has already signed an agreement with Italy’s Impulso Space to explore an India-Europe space industrial corridor. Khandelwal strongly believes that space infrastructure is as essential a foundational technology as steel and power plants. “It is critical for civilisation advancement. While the U.S. and China have a decade-long head start, India is uniquely positioned to scale and compete globally, leveraging space for defence, internet connectivity, and artificial intelligence applications,” he adds.