Hyderabad-based spacetech startup Dhruva Space has received a grant of Rs 105 crore from the Government of India's Research, Development and Innovation Fund, commonly known as RDIF.
The startup said that the funding will support Project Garud, its programme to develop a next-generation 500 kg-class satellite platform designed for large-scale constellation deployment.
The grant was formalised on May 13, 2026 at an event in New Delhi marking the inaugural Enterprise Technology Evaluation agreement signing and the first fund disbursement under the government's Rs 1 lakh crore RDI Scheme.
The ceremony was held in the presence of Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, and other senior government officials.
Dhruva Space said it is among the first batch of companies to receive support under the RDIF initiative.
What Project Garud is about
Existing satellite systems are typically custom-built for specific missions, which means each one takes considerable time and resources to develop, with limited scope to reuse components or processes across projects.
Project Garud is designed to change this by creating a standardised, production-ready satellite platform in the 300 to 500 kg class that can be built repeatedly and at volume.
The platform uses a flat-pack architecture, which allows multiple satellites to be stacked efficiently inside a launch vehicle, reduces the time needed for system integration, and improves overall deployment timelines. This kind of architecture is well suited for deploying large constellations of satellites rather than single, standalone spacecraft.
It is being designed to support a range of applications including telecommunications, national security, earth observation, and emerging data-driven use cases.
Beyond developing the satellite platform itself, Dhruva Space plans to build the manufacturing infrastructure, tooling, and industrial processes needed to produce satellites at high volumes.
The startup's roadmap targets a production rate of up to two satellites per day, which would translate to an annual manufacturing capacity of approximately 500 to 600 satellites across multiple mission configurations.
Abhay Egoor, CTO and Co-founder of Dhruva Space, said, "Project Garud represents the industrialisation of satellite manufacturing from India. The global market is rapidly moving toward constellation-scale deployments, but the supply side for reliable, production-ready spacecraft platforms remains constrained. Through RDIF, Dhruva Space is building an indigenous satellite platform and manufacturing ecosystem capable of supporting high-volume deployment requirements across communications, intelligence, and strategic applications."
"Our objectives are to build satellites for our own missions, and to position Dhruva Space as a globally competitive spacecraft OEM and subsystem supplier. The RDI programme strengthens India's Space technology stack across Platform Architecture, Avionics, Power systems, and scalable manufacturing capabilities. Project Garud also speaks of our long-term vision toward enabling spacecraft solutions for higher orbital regimes, including MEO and GEO-class missions in the future," he added.