Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space has secured ₹105 crore under the Research, Development & Innovation Fund (RDIF) to power ‘Project Garud’, a major step towards strengthening India’s private-sector satellite capabilities. The initiative aims to develop a 500 kg-class satellite platform tailored for constellation-scale missions, marking a significant milestone in the country’s growing space ecosystem.
The project is designed to accelerate India’s ability to build scalable, high-performance satellites for both domestic and global markets. The funding will support the development of an indigenous, modular, and mass-producible satellite platform, said an official release on Thursday.
The 500 kg-class architecture is intended to bridge the gap between smaller experimental satellites and larger traditional systems, offering an optimal balance of payload capacity, scalability, and launch efficiency. The platform is being engineered as a standardised, production-oriented system capable of supporting diverse applications, including telecommunications, national security, Earth observation, and emerging data-driven use cases. It is also expected to enable faster deployment cycles and improved manufacturing repeatability.
