DEFYING GRAVITY. SpaceFields co-founders (from left) Apurwa
Masook, Sudarshan Samal, and Rounak Agrawal
The first rockets that Apurwa Masook and his friends built were anything but sophisticated. Fashioned out of PVC pipes and fuelled by a mixture of fertiliser-grade chemicals, they took shape not inside an aerospace laboratory but in the backyard of a college hostel in Odisha. None of the 15 students involved with the project had studied aerospace engineering. All they had among them was a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, and an IT student. Yet the team kept experimenting until it built and launched a series of sounding rockets to survey the nearby Hirakud dam.A decade on, the student project has evolved into SpaceFields, a deep-tech startup backed by IISc’s Foundation for Science Innovation and Development. It focuses on one of the least crowded — and arguably the most strategic — segments of India’s space and defence ecosystem: solid propulsion systems.
Test-firing of the SpaceFields’ Aerospike rocket engine
Co-founded by Masook, Sudarshan Samal, and Rounak Agrawal after the space sector was opened to private players in 2020, Bengaluru-based SpaceFields develops propulsion technologies for use across missiles, rockets, drones, and pyrotechnic systems. While much of India’s private space ecosystem has gravitated towards launch vehicles or satellites, SpaceFields chose propulsion despite the high technological barriers involved. The reasoning was simple. Any rocket or missile needs fuel. “Propulsion is like the ink inside a pen,” says Masook. “The platform may change, but without propulsion nothing moves.”Defence needsThe company is also addressing a less-discussed challenge. India has decades’ worth of imported missiles and rockets with propellants that have reached the end of their operational life, even though many of the systems remain usable.SpaceFields is developing indigenous capabilities to refurbish these ageing stockpiles, and help reduce dependence on foreign original equipment manufacturers at a time when geopolitical conflicts have hit global supply lines.Its customers include defence organisations such as HAL, Bharat Electronics and the Indian Navy, alongside several space-focused startups. The company has won five iDEX challenges under the Ministry of Defence and more than a dozen R&D contracts.To support future growth, SpaceFields recently moved into a 42,000 sq ft R&D facility in Bengaluru, which has integrated chemistry labs, prototyping capabilities and design infrastructure. The Andhra Pradesh government has allotted the startup 121 acres in the Anantapur Defence Corridor, where it plans to establish its manufacturing base.For a company that began with borrowed tools, pocket money and tinkering in a hostel backyard, the ambition today stretches far beyond rocket launches. It is building the propulsion technologies that could power India’s next generation of defence and space programmes.Published on July 6, 2026
