Spacetech startups urge Telangana govt to build dedicated Space City | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Even as Telangana is eyeing space tech sector as the next pillar of growth, spacetech companies have urged the state govt to develop a dedicated ‘Space City’ to cluster the ecosystem and provide specialised infrastructure for testing, manufacturing and scaling deeptech products.The suggestion, which comes even as Andhra Pradesh is wooing space tech companies with a dedicated first-of-its-kind 15,000-acre space city in Tirupati and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, was made by spacetech startup founders during a meeting with IT & industries minister D Sridhar Babu on Saturday evening here.During the meeting at the secretariat with 14 Indian spacetech companies, including Skyroot Aerospace, Dhruva Space, Constelli, TakeMe2Space, Cosmoserve Space, Abyom SpaceTech & Defence, Sanyark Space, XDLINX Space Labs, EON Space Labs, Red Balloon Aerospace, AnduraX, Bluj Aerospace, Apollyon Dynamics and Vassar Labs, the minister agreed to examine the suggestion as part of the state govt’s plan to catapult Hyderabad into one of the world’s top five spacetech hubs.“Telangana has already built competitive strengths in IT, life sciences and aerospace & defence. I believe space technology is the next growth pillar in our journey. Startups (in Telangana) are building rockets, satellites, space debris removal, orbital infrastructure and other frontier technologies that represent the next generation of advanced engineering and innovation from Hyderabad. As we work towards our trillion-dollar economy ambition, our focus is on bringing these strengths together to accelerate Hyderabad’s spacetech growth and build one of Asia’s leading deeptech hubs,” Sridhar Babu said.The minister said Hyderabad had a natural advantage because of its engineering talent, aerospace and defence base, fabrication capabilities and strategic institutions such as DRDO, DRDL, RCI, NRSC and ISRO’s ADRI.Global aerospace companies, including Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, Collins Aerospace and Boeing, along with local SMEs and startups, further strengthen the ecosystem.Pointing out that more than 30% of India’s cutting-edge space-tech companies are from Hyderabad, Sridhar Babu said that the city was moving beyond its services identity into frontier innovation. He cited more than 150 global innovation centres (GICs) established in Telangana over the past 18 months as evidence of the shift.Company founders said Telangana had helped them build rockets, satellites, reusable space systems, orbital data centres, high-altitude platforms, imaging technologies and analytics products for global markets. Babu said the state would work to support specialised infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, talent, research partnerships and collaboration to help firms scale commercially.Skyroot Aerospace founder-CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said Telangana gave Skyroot an exceptional environment to grow from an idea to an orbital launch company. “As we now move from our first successful orbital flight towards a higher launch cadence, Hyderabad will continue to be at the heart of where we design, build and scale our launch technologies for India and the world.”Dhruva Space co-founder Chaitanya Dora Surapureddy said his company is building in Telangana for the world. “From constellation missions and spacecraft systems to establishing one of South Asia’s largest manufacturing facility for scaled and indigenous production of satellites of up to 500 kg, we are also helping build a strong talent pool of space scientists in the city while delivering missions for customers globally. The depth of talent, engineering capability and industrial ecosystem in Telangana gives us the confidence to think bigger and build at scale.”