Bellatrix Aerospace, is an Indian private aerospace manufacturer and Small satellite company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company was established in 2015. It plans to launch its own rocket named Chetak in 2023. Recently, Bellatrix Aerospace has successfully tested the country’s first privately built Hall Thruster, a highly efficient electric propulsion system that’s ideal for micro-satellites weighing 50-500 kg and can be scaled up for heavier satellites.
The startup had earlier developed the world’s first commercial Microwave Plasma Thruster, which used water as fuel and for which it had bagged an order from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Bellatrix is working towards flying this thruster on a satellite mission in the coming months, which it expects will open the space transportation company’s gateway to the commercial market by the end of this year, this thruster also forms a critical technology for the space taxi that it is developing. Compared to conventional chemical propulsion technologies, electric propulsion systems offer much higher specific impulse, or mileage, thus allowing satellites to carry more useful transponders and achieve 3X higher return on investment. Initially developed in Russia, the hall thruster technology is, today, the most reliable and time tested electric propulsion system in the market. Heaterless cathode technology is the key innovation that sets this apart from the competition by increasing the life and redundancy of the system. India is also the first country to have designed it to operate efficiently at very low current levels.
The entire team of scientists and advisors at Electric Propulsion System Division (EPSD) have put in relentless efforts to prove this can be independently done in India by a private company from scratch. The firm’s Electric Propulsion System Division (EPSD), led by senior scientist Rajesh Natarajan, played a key role in developing the thruster that’s ideal for micro satellites. Moreover, Bellatrix Aerospace is also developing green chemical propulsion system that forms an eco-friendly high performance alternative for toxic and carcinogenic Hydrazine based propellants. Earlier in the year, Bellatrix had announced collaborations with other spacetech startups such as Skyroot Aerospace, SatSure, and Dhruva Space on its ambitious orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) mission.
