Space Rickshaw

Space Rickshaw is an Indian NewSpace startup developing unmanned orbital laboratory platforms (space labs) and reusable re-entry capsules for microgravity research and commercial payload hosting in LEO. The company made its orbital debut with SR-0 DEMOSAT, a demonstration satellite launched in August 2024 aboard ISRO's SSLV-D3 — the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle's third development flight and the rocket's first fully successful mission, which successfully placed multiple commercial payloads into orbit.

Following the SR-0 demonstration, Space Rickshaw entered commercial production with six additional satellites under manufacturing for paying customers, establishing early revenue traction. The company's re-entry capsule concept addresses a significant gap in the Indian and broader commercial space ecosystem: returning payloads from orbit remains extremely rare and expensive, as only government programs (NASA Dragon, JAXA HTV-R concepts, Russian Soyuz/Ресурс) and SpaceX Dragon routinely do so commercially.

A commercial Indian re-entry capsule service would enable pharmaceutical crystallization experiments, biological sample return, and materials science research for Indian academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and industrial customers. Space Rickshaw operates within India's rapidly expanding NewSpace sector, accelerated by the 2023 liberalization of space regulations under IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre).