He Wants To Set Up Fuel Stations In Space!

'It is our duty to keep space sustainable and free of debris.'

Fuel stations in a city or on the highways are not an unusual sight.

But a fuel station in space for satellites is a new idea.

After its lifespan of around 15 years or so, satellites become space debris when the fuel they carry is exhausted.

How do we make satellites more sustainable and stop them from creating more debris in space?

It is from this question that the space start-up OrbitAID began.

OrbitFab, based in the US, will be the first start-up company to deliver fuel to USA Space Force satellites this year.

Chennai-based OrbitAID Aerospace will be the second in the world and the first in India to start refuelling stations in space.

In January 2025, the company received a $1.5 million fund in a pre-seed round from Unicorn India Ventures for its space demo scheduled for this year.

"I want all satellites to be sustainable. That's the only way we can make space a safe place," Sakthikumar R, founder-CEO, OrbitAID, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.

Growing up in a village and looking up at the stars

I became passionate about space mainly because of growing up in a village in Tamil Nadu. As you know we can see a lot of stars in villages where there is less pollution.

We used to sleep outside when the weather was hot, and that was when I used to look up at the sky, the moon and the stars though the moon fascinated me more.

The interest in space amplified when I was gifted a small telescope by a relative. Looking at the moon using the telescope became my main pastime.

In the village, I used to hear a lot of superstition associated with the full moon, new moon days, lunar and solar eclipses. But I looked at all these events with a scientific bend of mind.

At a young age, I decided that I would be a scientist, a space scientist.

The question in my mind was what do I have to do to join ISRO and become a space scientist?

I studied aeronautical engineering in an engineering college in Tamil Nadu and then did a master's in space engineering and rocketry at the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi.

In 2011, I joined the Indian Institute of Science as a researcher on space engineering.

That was where I met Nikhil Balasubramanian who had joined IISc as an intern, and later become the co-founder of my space start-up.

Satellites, their lifespan and debris in space

Many people used to ask me, why do we have to send so many satellites into space? What happens to all those satellites after some time?

I had to explain to them that with the help of data sent by the satellites, we were able to solve a lot of problems in communication, climate, agriculture, etc.

Then the question comes, since the value of satellites is so high, how we can use them efficiently?

As we were working on projects for ISRO, DRDO, etc on satellites at IISc, it made us look into the fuel capacity and life span of satellites specifically.

The lifespan of a satellite in space is around 15 years. It carries only the amount of fuel that makes it sustain for that period of time. After that, we have to discard them.

A satellite is just like your car. We refill petrol or diesel at regular intervals for the car to run. But in the case of satellites, there are no fuel stations in space to refuel.

So, if we could refuel the satellites, we can extend the lifespan of satellites and thus reduce the debris in space.

It was a good idea to write a scientific paper, we first thought.

Why not a start-up in the field of space?

Then, it dawned on us that the idea deserves much more than a scientific paper, it had the potential to be an innovation, and a start-up.

In 2014, the start-up scene in India was not very encouraging especially in space.

So, while working at IISc itself, I began the initial journey towards a start-up by doing market research.

That was when I got the idea that we could not just refuel satellites but provide other services also.

Just like service centres for your car, we could establish a service centre in space where not just fuel, but other services also would be available.

So, like the fuel stations we have here, the fuel station in space can offer On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) also which includes servicing and solving problems of solar panels, solar batteries, etc.

Convincing Investors That The Idea Was Not 'Fantasy'

Though I had been working on the idea from 2014, we incorporated our start-up only in 2021, after the government announced the Space Policy in 2020.

We decide on the name OrbitAID because the orbit needs aid, and we are offering aid!

I became the founder and CEO, Nikhil Balasubramanian was co-founder and chief operating officer and my college classmate Mano Balaji came on as co-founder and chief marketing officer.

From 2015 to 2021, I went around trying to convince people about the idea of a fuel station in space for satellites.

A fuel station in space? Everybody called it a 'fantasy'.

The biggest challenge I faced was convincing investors. They felt it was not a workable business idea but only a research idea and a fantasy.

I told them that it was not a fantasy, and that there was going to be a big market out there to explore with the number of satellites countries are sending to space, increasing year after year.

(There were around 28,300 satellites orbiting the earth at the start of 2024. SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, alone plans to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites, and possibly up to 34,400 in the future. As of January 2025, there are 6,912 Starlink satellites in orbit, with 6,874 of them working.)

I travelled all over the world trying to convince people about my idea. I must have met hundreds of investors, including many government officials.

I knew the first task in front of me was to spread awareness and only then could I convince anyone. So, I spent those years making investors aware of a new emerging field.

Tamil Nadu government became the first investor.

The Tamil Nadu government first agreed to invest in the idea.

Though I approached them in 2022, it was only after one year that they agreed to invest. I received the fund of Rs 4.5 crore (Rs 45 million) in early 2024.

In January 2025, we got a $1.5 million fund in a pre-seed round led by Unicorn India Ventures for a demo launch.

Compared to 2014, we see that both the space industry and investors believe in the idea and are ready to take the next step forward.

A successful zero-gravity test

When the investors asked us how the fuel station would work, we demonstrated it on the ground.

For example, the fuel wall of the satellite is permanently closed unlike the fuel tank of an automobile.

Our innovation is an interface that will do the docking and refuelling.

In November 2024, we successfully tested our patented Standard Interface for Docking and Refuelling on a zero-gravity flight in Florida.

The test was conducted with Nikhil and I on board a zero-G flight which is a special airplane that lets you experience what it's like to float in space, even though you are still on earth.

The plane flies in a pattern called a parabola -- going up and then diving down in a curve.

During the dive, all that is inside the plane fall at the same speed and you feel weightless, just like astronauts in space.

NASA has been using it for 50 years to conduct experiments to simulate space like conditions.

And we became successful in the test.

We cannot but forget the support we received from IISc and StartupTN.

Now comes the real test, a demo on docking and refuelling in space between two satellites. This will happen in the second quarter of 2025.

After the demo, we expect to go commercial in 2026.

Though OrbitAID is the first in Asia to offer this service, the only other company in the world that offers the same service is OrbitFab, a start-up based in the US.

OrbitFab is two years ahead of us, but their demonstration also is going to happen in 2025.

A fuel station in space will be a reality soon

Our plan is to build a constellation of tanker satellites which will function as fuel stations in space.

These tanker satellites are equipped with the capabilities needed for docking and fuel transfer to client satellites.

The lifespan of our refilling satellite is 10 to 15 years but, in the meantime, we will come up with a plan to bring our satellites back, refuel it and send it back so that we don't leave any debris in space.

We look at space agencies, defence agencies, telecommunication providers, satellite operators, debris removal vehicles, etc as potential clients.

All the countries that send satellites to space like France, the UK, Japan, US are interested in what we are offering, and they are looking forward to our demo this year.

I want all the satellites to be sustainable. That's the only way we can make space a safe place.

And it is our duty to keep space sustainable and free of debris.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com