'Space Is The Future And We're In A Transition': Skyroot Aerospace CEO Pawan Chandana At NDTV Defence Summit 2026

Nearly 100 per cent of all work that needs a massive ability to compute is going to happen in space, according to industry experts. Pawan Kumar Chandana, CEO of Skyroot Aerospace, said this is a huge and exciting time for space exploration.

"Humans are ever expanding as a species. I always say that if steel has built modern civilization, space is going to be the future civilization. We are just at the cusp of that transition," Chandana said at the NDTV Defence Summit during a session titled 'Ignition: India's Race to Own Space'.

"You just imagine: orbital data centres, communication satellites, flights to space and hotels in space," he said.

"India is the third country in the world to have private launch capability. In fact the rocket which you saw is 100 per cent designed in India, 100 per cent manufactured in India, and more than 90 per cent sourced in India. That's a very unique thing: a hardcore, deep tech, high tech product being fully made in India. More than 70 per cent of the market is global. We will launch satellites for customers at a cost of zero," he said.

"In fact, we are just an eight-year-old company and I am just giving a view of things. We started eight years ago and at the time there was no policy for the private space sector. There was no funding environment in the country. Even today it has not become much easier, but it is still quite difficult for plant capital," he said.

"There was no talent in the private sector at that time and in fact the probability of success was almost negative. That's how we started: we thought this is something which we can do from India," Chandana added.

According to him, after eight years, his company is one of the very few private firms in the world that have successfully launched a rocket into orbit.

"Also one of the rarest of the rarest events: a first attempt to put a rocket in orbit has succeeded. I mean famously even SpaceX's Falcon made four attempts to successfully put the satellite into orbit and failed to put it in the first attempt. That's how it started the journey," he said.

He said one of the important aspects of the recent launch was their team, which is more than 1,000 people today with an average age of just 28 years.

"Just to know the complexity of this rocket, it has more than 30,000 components and all have to work in an extreme environment. Imagine the environment is the most extreme environment, whether it is vibration, heat or the entire launch environment. It all succeeded in the very first attempt, even just 15 minutes of flight. That's where the journey all started," he added.