Meet Dr Srimathy Kesan, the czarina of India’s spacetech start-ups

Founder & CEO of Space Kidz India, Dr Srimathy Kesan has committed herself to identify and nurturing future scientists by working in the area of space education with schoolchildren. Officially registered in 2016, the company recently took the dreams of 750 school girls from the remotest villages across India into space with the successful launch of the AzaadiSAT-2 aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s SSLV-D2 launch vehicle. Encouraged by the words of ISRO and IN-SPACe chairpersons, the company is presently working on the prototype of a satellite or spacecraft bus to carry payloads to the Moon, Dr Kesan told Business Today’s Manish Pant in an exclusive interaction. She is the only Indian to be decorated with the ambassadorship to the world’s three leading space centres, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) of the US, the European Space Agency (ESA) of the EU and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre of Russia.

Space Kidz is an unusual name for an aerospace company. What made you come up with it?

At the time of starting the company, I handpicked my team from among schoolkids from standard eighth to eleventh. The core team joined us at a very young age and has been around since. I thought these are exceptional kids with me and I must try and reach out to more. Only if you retain a childlike curiosity, you are open to learning about new things. Once you start thinking as an adult, that curiosity dies. Since there is a child in all of us, I thought why not name our organisation Space Kidz. As an aerospace company, we have done 18 balloons – also called near space launch vehicles (NSLV) – as well as three suborbital and four orbital satellites.

Did your chief scientist Rifath Sharook also join when you were launching the company?

[Laughing] Yes, he was the first child that I enrolled in the programme!

No wonder then that you still treat him as a kid!

Well, some things don’t change! He knows me more than he does his own mother. He calls me ‘dad’ as he lost his father when he was eight. That’s why we share a special bond.

In 2017, you launched the KalamSat, India’s first microsatellite to be developed by school students on a NASA spacecraft. How did that happen?

It was also the first time that a student satellite from India was launched aboard a NASA rocket. That was a moment of immense pride for us. We had launched balloons before that and received tremendous accolades. We, therefore, decided to jump into orbital launches. At that time, ISRO didn’t offer many opportunities for student projects, while SpaceX had just about launched operations. The other space agencies were asking for an exorbitant fee in the $1-2 lakh range per kilo. We didn’t know what to do as we are essentially a bootstrap company. We decided that rather than sending a heavy satellite into space, we could start with a satellite that was the size of a gulabjamun! Immediately afterward the universe conspired and we got the opportunity to create a payload for a competition announced by the Cubes in Space programme along with NASA and Colorado Space Grant Consortium. We thought that instead of restricting ourselves to a science experiment, let’s develop a microsatellite and test that? And that’s how we ended up building the 64 grams KalamSat in 2017.

Since you are a part of India’s journey towards developing a robust spacetech ecosystem, how do you see it progressing?

We are living in the best of times I should say. From a child to a researcher, everyone wants to go into space today. But it is not only about getting individuals and companies excited, there’s also a lot of other learning in the process. That’s the reason you also have so many startups also coming up. But then how many of them are seriously working to achieve their stated goals is a question mark because outer space is a harsh place. If the amount of money you invest doesn’t go in the right direction, then you are gone. That way I think India has the top 15 startups that are actually working towards making a difference. The best part is we have a fantastic ISRO chairperson in Dr. SP Somanath, who is very supportive and encouraging. We now also have IN-SPACe chairperson Dr. Pawan Goenka firmly behind us and he is giving that much-needed push to the private sector. Between the two of them, they have motivated us to set our sights on something really big.

When you say big, is something cooking?

We are looking at raising funds for a satellite or spacecraft bus to the Moon. The vehicle will be called ‘Space Rickshaw’ as the very mention of the word rickshaw evokes nostalgia among most Indians. It will be a very economical early-stage vehicle. As the main structural component of a satellite, it will have the capacity to carry multiple payloads to the Moon. To be launched by an ISRO rocket, anyone doing research on the Moon will be able to send their payloads through the Space Rickshaw.

How was the programme to assemble the AzadiSAT satellite with 750 schoolgirls conceptualised?

I thought that we must do something very different and remarkable to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence. And what better way could have been then bringing school going girls in villages to work on the satellite? However, I was a little put off after speaking to managements of some of the participating schools as they said the girls were incapable of handling a technology-driven project like AzaadiSAT and, in any case, they would be getting married after completing the 10th standard. So, I decided to handpick 750 girls from 75 schools, with each school contributing 10 students to coincide with the 75 years of India’s independence. The girls came from all over the county. The only states that got left out were Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram as village schools in those states lacked proper road connectivity.

How did the selected schoolgirls contribute to the project?

We sent a printed circuit board (PCB) to all the schools. We then conducted online sessions over six months to train them on space, satellites, spacecraft, the type of launch rocket, where would the AzaadiSAT sit on the rocket, programming of the PCB and the sensors we were using on the satellite. The team successfully assembled AzaadiSAT-1, which was launched on the SSLV-D1 rocket in August 2022. The girls, who were with us since February 2022, even visited Sriharikota to witness the launch. Many of them actually stepped out of their villages for the first time! However, as the first mission was unsuccessful, we got another opportunity with the SSLV-D2 on February 10 this year.

Did the entire team of 750 girls travel to Sriharikota?

About 500 girls visited there, with the rest 250 from interior pockets in states such as Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab not being able to make it as their parents didn’t permit them to travel. The trip was supported by the schools and local panchayats, while we took care of their accommodation, meals and local transportation.

How was the funding arranged for the AzaadiSAT launch?

We were majorly supported by Hexaware Technologies. Some part of the funding also came from Lumina. Besides, we also put our personal funding into the programme.

In your view, what is the most significant outcome of the successful launch of AzadiSAT-2?

None of the girls knew much about the space industry when we started. But many of them are now trying to convince their families to support their further education. Also, many others have expressed their desire to work with ISRO. The programme’s impact didn’t end with building a satellite and launching it but has rather left a lasting impression on the girls.

This might have also been one of the largest such programmes involving school students globally…

Yes, you are right. Nobody had done a programme involving 750 students before that.

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