Dhruva Space to Launch LEAP-1 with AI

India's prominent spacetech startup Dhruva Space is preparing for its first commercial mission to launch LEAP-1 with AI in Q3 2025 on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

This mission represents a significant transition for the Hyderabad-based company, moving from technology validation to commercial activity. The mission utilizes Dhruva Space's indigenously developed P-30 satellite platform.

Dhruva's LEAP-1 mission will contain leading payloads from Australian companies Akula Tech and Esper Satellites, positioning Dhruva Space as a credible player in the global satellite services space.

This mission follows the successful in-orbit qualification of the P-30 platform on the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s PSLV-C58 in January of 2024, demonstrating the reliability of the P-30 platform to international customers. 

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The LEAP-1 mission will combine Dhruva's hosted payload services and the Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) model with the Dhruva's Integrated Space Operations & Command Suite (ISOCS) to enable real-time mission management and payload and data downlinking.

Preetham Akula, CEO of Akula Tech, stated that the company’s Nexus-01 payload will validate an AI module that is able to process real-time data and retrain in-orbit to facilitate real-time decisions in defence, climate response and emergency operations.

Shoaib Iqbal, Co-founder and CEO of Esper Satellites, pointed out that the fact that OTR-2 hyperspectral imager can be launched on Dhruva's platform, confirms that advanced Earth observation technology can be both cost-effective and scalable.

Sanjay Nekkanti, Co-founder and CEO of Dhruva Space stated that the collaboration is an example of Dhruva's global vision to create partnerships and promote Indo-Australian space cooperation. He also said that he could only imagine that the visit from Australian Space Agency chief Enrico Palermo to Dhruva's Hyderabad facility in 2022 led to this collaboration.