This Chennai-based aerospace startup is changing the game for nano and micro satellites

Bengaluru: The thing about Deployer SARATHI is that you are more likely to believe that it is some version of pinball game than pin-based CubeSat separation system that safeguards launch vehicles and delivers satellites to space.

Deployer SARATHI (Spacecraft Assisted Release, and Adaptive technology for High Precision Insertion) is the result of constant push for innovation to simplify mechanisms of the spring plungers that ejects the CubeSats once the doors of the nano and micro satellites' orbital deployers are open on orbit, Srimathy Kesan, founder of Space Kidz India, an aerospace startup told PTI.

The start up focuses on designing, manufacturing and launching nano and micro satellites in India.

Kesan has been invited to display deployers and nano satellites developed by her team at the Aero India 2025’s Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) Challenge pavilion as her Deployer X, a non-canisterised pin-based Cubesat separation system, designed for 1U TO 3U CubeSats won the iDEX Challenge 2023.

Unlike larger spacecraft, which have their own adaptors to mount on launch vehicles, CubeSats have a very small volume with little room available for mounting equipment, forcing developers to come up with new ideas, pointed out Kesan.

“The deployers that were used until now in the world were at least three times more than the actual mass of the satellite. That pushes the cost incredibly high. So, now we are working on in an absolutely economical manner and bringing down the mass of the deployer at least to 1/10th of what it actually was,” said Kesan.

This is a game changer, insists Kesan.

“We've already validated our Deployer X that we built for 1U to 3U. Now, we are going to be enhancing it for the armed forces. We are building a deployer for 6U, 12U, and 16U,” she told PTI.

For Kesan, those deceptively simple looking deployers serve double purpose.

Through her Mission ShaktiSAT, she has already been leveling the space sector for women and the less privileged. Her fourth satellite mission for instance, Azzadisat, which she launched in 2023 via Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), for which she collaborated with the Indian government, Kesan involved 750 girl students from government schools in rural areas.

"This ambitious project was born out of a vision to commemorate India’s 75th anniversary of independence, Azaadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. We taught these girls the basic understanding and knowledge of space and then built 75 small experiments and launched an 8U satellite into space through SSLV D3, ISRO," added Kesan.

All the satellites that she has manufactured and launched so far -- 19 NSLVs (Near Space Launch Vehicles), BalloonSATs, 3 Sub-Orbital satellites, and 5 Orbital satellites -- were in fact built by a team of young adults, mostly girls, she said.

Chennai-based Kesan, a B.Com. graduate, said she had embraced being a housewife until she went for a visit to NASA and came across Nano satellites. "I had an epiphany: this is it, this is the purpose of my birth, my journey henceforth," said Kesan.

She said she initially was organising trips for school children to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA), and Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) to help them channelise their awe of space into a probable career in space tech.

Then, when she gained enough knowledge, she began teaching the nuances of building a BalloonSAT to economically challenged students from Seychelles in Africa, with support from UNESCO.

Later, she said, she began putting together a team to build those satellites, through her startup Space Kidz India.

"Space Kidz India is now a decade old, we started off by launching high altitude balloons, then sub orbital because, ultimately, we wanted to enter into orbital satellites. We have built 27 space missions, and I am the only woman founder in the world to have had high school and university students build real time satellites with applications, that is, for telecommunication,” said Kesan.

Her guidance led to the historic launch of KALAMSAT, world's lightest and first-ever 3-D printed satellite that she launched via NASA’s Terrier Orion rocket, in 2017.

Kesan wants to take this further with her newly developed deployer under the 1U TO 3U category, which is already in space. According to her, it has been validated in the SSLV-D3, along with EOS-08 that was launched on August 16, 2024, by ISRO.

"Girls, or women, in the space industry form only about 14 per cent to 19 per cent. So, I advocate for girls. That's the reason the next step is Mission ShaktiSAT," said Kesan.

Simply put, through the mission, 12,000 girls from every corner of the globe, representing 108 diverse nations like Eswatini, Lesotho and Burkino Faso, will build a "spacecraft to the Moon".

"We are enhancing the deployer model and building a different design that is going to be 6U, 12U and 16U, making more launches possible at economical cost," said Kesan.

She said that on day one of Aero India 2025, she met potential backers for the project that will cost Rs 2 crore.

"So, you can say I am super thrilled to be here participating at Aero India, showcasing our product, even though I had to stand six hours at a stretch, explaining about it to the inaugural crowd," said Kesan.

February 11 happens to be international day for women and girls in science.