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Hathor Rockets plans a Rs 250 Cr rocket engine factory and test site in Andhra's Tirupati district
The Chennai startup, which wants to sell ready to integrate engines to launch vehicle makers, signed an MoU at the CII Partnership Summit for a facility at Routhusuramala.
Hathor Rockets, a Chennai space startup building rocket engines, has signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board to set up a rocket engine manufacturing, testing and R&D facility at Routhusuramala in Tirupati district. The deal was one of nine space and defence MoUs signed at the 31st CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam on 12 and 13 November, The Economic Times reported.
The Economic Times and Business Standard both put the project at Rs 250 crore with 200 jobs by December 2031, and Business Standard said it covers 100 acres. The work will span liquid engines for launch vehicles, in-space mobility and strategic defence. Speaking to The Week, founder Keerthivarman V K gave somewhat different figures: he said the company will acquire 150 acres in Tirupati Space City and invest Rs 250 crore over three to five years, with 250 direct and up to 500 indirect jobs. We report both because the summit figures and the founder's account do not match.
Hathor was incorporated in June 2023 and was first incubated at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram before moving to IIT Madras, The Week reported. The company says it builds semi-cryogenic and cryogenic engines for small and medium lift launch vehicle companies. Its pitch is to be an engine supplier rather than a rocket maker, and Keerthivarman told The Week the aim is to help rocket builders cut development timelines from nearly a decade to four or five years.
The company raised Rs 14 crore in a pre-seed round led by the IIT Madras Unicorn Frontier Fund, according to its own announcement and The Week, which said the round was made up of Rs 12 crore plus an additional Rs 2 crore. The Economic Times noted that Tirupati district sits close to Sriharikota, and Business Standard described Skyroot Aerospace as an earlier anchor in the state's Tirupati Space City.
An MoU is an intent, not a finished plant. The useful signals will be the land allotment, which of the two acreage figures it matches, and the first engine tests at the new site.
