Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space wins Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom Skill Excellence Award

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based start-up Dhruva Space Private Limited has been awarded the winner of the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom Skill Excellence Awards, which were established by the Government of India's Ministry of Communications.

The Awards Ceremony took place on March 27, 2023, at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, as part of the First International Quantum Conclave. Dhruva Space received the PDUT Award from Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology in the Government of India.

Dhruva Space manufactures satellite platforms up to 300 kg in weight with many payload configurations, broadening the company's ability to deal with any payload. In addition, the business builds satellite separation systems and, to round out its full-stack services, designs and develops Earth Stations for tracking and operating satellites in orbit. Dhruva Space successfully deployed two amateur communication satellites, Thybolt-1 and Thybolt-2, onboard ISRO's PSLV-C54 in November 2022 to demonstrate the company's Space-as-a-Service offering.

The Ministry of Communications, Government of India, established the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom (PDUT) Skill Excellence Awards. The Award scheme seeks to encourage, stimulate, and inspire India's Telecom Skill ecosystem by annually rewarding successful telecom-skilled individuals and institutions for their exemplary and outstanding contributions in the areas of Telecom Skilling, Telecom Services, Telecom Manufacturing, and Telecom Applications in deploying telecom dependent sectoral solutions for various fields such as agriculture, commerce, health, education, and more. The Award was granted to five recipients in 2023, one of which is Dhruva Space.

Sanjay Nekkanti, CEO of Dhruva Space, said, "This is the first time the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom (PDUT) Skill Excellence Award has been given to a Space-Tech startup, so this is truly a proud moment for us. Dhruva Space is dedicated to developing next-generation, dependable space technologies that will benefit life on Earth. Such technologies are critical to the telecom industry, and we are grateful to the Ministry of Communications and the Government of India for recognising Dhruva Space's ability to manufacture in India for the rest of the globe."

"Winning the PDUT Skill Excellence Award this year is another true testament to the prowess of India's private Space sector and the potential of satellite technologies in everyday life," Nekkanti adds, "following Dhruva Space winning the National Startup Award in 2020 for capabilities in Space and Satellite verticals."