Cosmoserve unveils Hyderabad facility for space debris removal, refuelling

Cosmoserve Space unveils Base 1 in Hyderabad for space debris removal and satellite servicing, raises $6 million in seed funding and targets commercial operations by 2028

Cosmoserve Space, an Indian startup developing active debris removal (ADR) technologies, unveiled Base 1, India’s first private and the world's sixth facility equipped with space vision effect and microgravity simulation, in Hyderabad on Thursday.

 Beyond removing space debris, the facility will support satellite servicing, including in-orbit repairs and refuelling.

 

Cosmoserve also announced a $6 million seed funding round, taking its total funding to over $9 million.

 

Japan-based Rebright Partners joined Indian investors Aranya Holdings, Naandi Ventures, AUM Ventures and Shakti VC in the round.

 

In July 2026, Cosmoserve flew its first payload, Mission Embrace, aboard Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket. It is planning to come up with the next technology demonstration mission by mid-2027 and its first commercial mission in early 2028.

 

 

This will be part of the larger roadmap by the Telangana government to transform Hyderabad into one of the most affordable space hubs in the world.

 

The state is also actively planning an exclusive Space City within the upcoming Bharat Future City.

 

“Facilities like Cosmoserve’s Base 1 show exactly why Hyderabad is leading the country in space innovation. We are now home to over 30 spacetech companies, including India's first spacetech unicorn and a few more soonicorns (soon to be unicorns). They are building everything from launch vehicles and space data centres to debris removal systems and drug discovery platforms,” said D. Sridhar Babu, Minister for Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Telangana.

 

The facility brings full-stack space servicing capabilities under one roof.

 

“We achieved Vikram 1 within a span of 11 months after starting operations and with lean staff strength. We also achieved it at a cost of around ₹1 crore, one of the cheapest in the world. The flight hardware was developed in under four months, six months ahead of schedule,” said Chiranjeevi Phanindra, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Cosmoserve Space.

 

Base 1 houses four key facilities: An Orbital Rendezvous and Capture Lab to simulate spacecraft capture operations; a Space Robotics Innovation Lab to develop robotic capture systems; an ISO Class 8 clean room for satellite integration; and a Mission Simulation and Control Centre to manage upcoming missions.

 

“We will start commercial operations by mid-2028, and this will open our doors to a global market projected to reach $14.5 billion by 2030,” Phanindra added.

 

The funding will support Base 1, technology demonstrations and two upcoming missions. Space debris is one of the biggest challenges facing the global space industry. Of the around 28,000 satellites in orbit, nearly 10,000 are dead or non-operational.

 

Earth's orbit is crowded with an estimated 68,000 debris objects smaller than 10 cm, 1.5 million fragments measuring 1–2 cm, and nearly 230 million tiny pieces ranging from 1 millimetre (mm) to 1 cm.

 

Even fragments just a few mm wide can pose serious risks to operational satellites, spacecraft and missions such as the International Space Station (ISS), given the high speeds at which they travel.

 

Around 660 collisions and explosions have been recorded in space, generating nearly 58,000 tracked debris fragments. As orbital congestion increases, so does the demand for space debris removal and satellite servicing.

 

With an estimated 1.3 million new satellites expected to be launched over the next decade, active debris removal and in-orbit servicing are becoming increasingly critical to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the global space economy.

 

“Cosmoserve currently sources close to 60 per cent of our mission components locally. We also aim to develop more critical technologies in-house through Base 1 and strengthen domestic manufacturing capabilities. Base 1 is where we build the capability to keep orbits usable, for Gaganyaan, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station and every satellite that follows,” said Phanindra.

 

Cosmoserve has developed a proprietary Dual Spacecraft Architecture, moving beyond the conventional one-to-one recovery model. Here, a dedicated spacecraft services a single satellite in a more cost-efficient manner.

 

Under this model, a larger Orbital Service Station acts as an in-space logistics hub carrying fuel, equipment and spare parts. And, a smaller Autonomous Service Vehicle travels to multiple satellites to capture, dock with, diagnose, repair or remove them from orbit.

 

The architecture is designed to enable just two spacecraft to service up to 100 satellites, potentially bringing servicing costs down from around $10 million to below $1 million per satellite.

 

By developing these capabilities in Hyderabad, Cosmoserve aims to make orbital servicing more affordable through local manufacturing and engineering.

 

Cosmoserve's upcoming milestones include testing its robotic capture systems in microgravity flights, re-flying Mission Embrace and conducting a full-scale space debris capture demonstration in 2027.