India’s space regulator IN-SPACe has selected three startups for funding under its Technology Adoption Fund (TAF) Scheme, backing projects that include a reusable liquid rocket engine and an artificial-intelligence platform for Earth observation. Astrobase Space Technologies, SatSure Analytics India and TM2SPACE Technologies were chosen through a multi-stage evaluation, with the announcement made on Thursday, according to NewsPoint.
The Technology Adoption Fund is IN-SPACe’s route for supporting space-technology development by non-government entities. The three startups emerged from an evaluation conducted by an expert committee with members from ISRO, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the Department of Science and Technology (DST), industry, academia and IN-SPACe itself.
How IN-SPACe chose the three startups
The selections followed a multi-stage evaluation in which the expert committee assessed the proposals in successive rounds before clearing the final names. The committee combined the national space agency, government departments, industry representatives and academics with officials from IN-SPACe. The makeup mirrors the spread of India’s space ecosystem, where ISRO’s technical base, government policy arms and a growing private industry now work alongside one another. Multi-stage reviews are a standard feature of public funding schemes, allowing proposals to be tested on technical detail before funds are committed.
Schemes such as the Technology Adoption Fund give young space companies a route to public backing for technologies that demand long development cycles and heavy upfront investment. IN-SPACe, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, was set up to promote and regulate private participation in the country’s space sector, and funding instruments of this kind form part of that brief. Private companies in India have taken on larger roles in launch services, satellite manufacturing and downstream data applications since the sector was opened to non-government players.
What Astrobase will build under IN-SPACe’s fund
Bengaluru-based Astrobase Space Technologies will develop a high-thrust 800 kN-class reusable LOX-LNG closed-cycle liquid rocket engine for medium-to-heavy lift launch vehicles. The 800 kN figure describes the engine’s thrust class, placing it in the bracket required to power launchers built for larger payloads. Medium-to-heavy lift vehicles are the workhorses of the launch market, carrying communication satellites, Earth-observation payloads and cargo into orbit.
LOX and LNG stand for liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, the two propellants the engine will burn. In a closed-cycle design, the exhaust gases that drive the engine’s turbopumps are routed into the main combustion chamber rather than being vented overboard, a configuration that extracts more energy from the same propellants and raises efficiency. Because the engine is reusable, it is meant to be recovered after flight and prepared for another mission, allowing the cost of the hardware to be spread across multiple launches. Engine programmes of this class typically move from design through component testing to full-scale hot-fire trials before a flight version is cleared for use.
Dhaarini, the IN-SPACe-backed Earth observation model
SatSure Analytics India will develop Dhaarini, a Large Earth Observation Model (LOM) designed as India’s foundational AI platform for remote sensing. Large observation models apply the training techniques of large language models to satellite imagery, learning patterns from vast volumes of Earth-observation data so that analysts can query, classify and interpret imagery faster than with conventional processing.
Dhaarini is aimed at applications across agriculture, infrastructure and disaster management. In agriculture, satellite imagery is routinely used to monitor crop health and estimate yields; in disaster management, it helps map flood extents or cyclone damage in the hours after an event; and infrastructure planners use it to track construction progress and land use. A foundational model for the country would give Indian analysts a shared AI base built around these tasks, rather than each team training its own system from scratch. Remote-sensing startups have multiplied as satellite data has become cheaper and easier to access, and AI models are increasingly the layer that turns raw imagery into usable information.
TM2SPACE named as third selection
TM2SPACE Technologies was named as the third startup selected under the scheme. The announcement, as reported, did not include details of the company’s proposed project. The selections were announced by IN-SPACe on Thursday.