Bellatrix Aerospace

Bellatrix Aerospace is a private Indian aerospace company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, founded in 2015. The company designs and manufactures advanced in-space propulsion systems spanning electric propulsion, non-toxic green chemical propulsion, and orbital transfer vehicles, serving missions from cubesat constellations to multi-ton geostationary communication satellites.

Its product line includes the Arka series of Hall Effect Thrusters (50 W to 5 kW), the Jal microwave plasma thruster that uses water as propellant, and the Rudra family of green monopropellant thrusters (1 N, 5 N and 100 N) offering a less-toxic alternative to hydrazine. Bellatrix also builds Pushpak, an orbital transfer vehicle capable of carrying payloads up to 750 kg with a hybrid propulsion system delivering up to 7 km/s of delta-v, as well as Fingernail, a compact one-piece propulsion module for nanosatellites.

The company's technology has flown on ISRO missions, including the PSLV C-58 POEM-3 mission where its ARKA and RUDRA systems were space-qualified, with ARKA notably demonstrating the world's first heaterless hollow cathode flown in space. In June 2022, Bellatrix raised $8 million in a Series A funding round to further develop its in-space propulsion and orbital mobility technologies, and has since expanded with new manufacturing and testing facilities in Bengaluru.