Inbound Aerospace seed round launch vehicle 2028

IIT-Madras incubated space tech start-up Inbound Aerospace is preparing for the maiden launch of a prototype of its autonomous spacecraft by the second half of 2028. The company is preparing for a seed round in the range of $11-25 million, primarily to secure a launch vehicle for the 2028 test mission and fund further research and development.

The Chennai-based company is developing reusable upper stage space vehicles that, once injected into orbit, can independently operate using their own propulsion systems. These autonomous and reusable vehicles can help in niche high-value research and manufacturing in sectors such as pharma and material sciences that require microgravity environments.

For the test launch, Inbound is evaluating options including SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Skyroot’s Vikram and some Japanese rockets.

Co-founders Abhijeet Bhutey and Vishal Reddy said that, unlike popular incumbents such as SpaceX’s Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz that cannot precisely control where they land, Inbound’s spacecraft can land at a designated point.

“Most spacecraft use circular parachutes that reliably slow the rate of descent. But what they cannot do is precisely guide the spacecraft to the final landing point. For our spacecraft, we have a more rectangular parachute with a steering mechanism - like the ones used in skydiving - designed to to guide the payload to the final location,” Reddy said.