India’s private space industry has crossed a threshold into world-class aerospace engineering. Bengaluru-based space-tech startup Astrobase Space Technologies unveiled ‘EVEREST’—India’s first fully integrated, 80-tonne-class Full-Flow Staged Combustion (FFSC) rocket engine.
The achievement places India in an ultra-exclusive global club. FFSC is widely considered the “Holy Grail” of rocket propulsion—the exact same engine cycle that powers SpaceX’s famous Raptor engine on Starship. With this breakthrough, India becomes only the fourth nation in history (after the Soviet Union, the US, and China) to develop this technology.
What Makes a “Full-Flow” Rocket Engine So Special?
To understand why this is a triumph, imagine how a normal car or traditional rocket engine works. In standard rockets, some fuel is burned early just to spin pumps that push the rest of the fuel into the engine—and that gas is often dumped out as waste.
A Full-Flow Staged Combustion (FFSC) engine turns that waste into zero.
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Two Separate Powerhouses: The engine uses two independent mini-burners (pre-burners). One turns all the liquid methane fuel into gas, and the other turns all the liquid oxygen into gas.
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Zero Wasted Gas: Every single drop of propellant powers the pumps before flowing straight into the main chamber to explode out of the nozzle.
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Cooler Running Pumps: Because the gas flowing through the pumps is diluted with extra fuel or oxygen, the turbopumps run cooler and experience less wear and tear.
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Built for 100+ Flights: Lower operational stress means the engine can be fired repeatedly without wearing out, making true rocket reusability a reality.
Why This Is a Huge Win for India
1. Slashed Launch Costs for Indian Satellites
By pairing high efficiency with liquid methane (which doesn’t leave dirty soot inside the engine like traditional kerosene), Astrobase plans to drive launch costs down to $300 per kilogram in the 2030s. This will make Indian launch services among the cheapest and most competitive on Earth.
2. Indigenous Deep-Tech Capability
Founded in 2024 by former ISRO propulsion engineer Devakumar Thammisetty and CoinDCX co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal, Astrobase represents the rapid maturity of India’s private space talent. Supported by IN-SPACe’s Technology Adoption Fund, this proves Indian private firms can build deep-tech hardware once reserved for superpowers.
3. World-Class Domestic Infrastructure
Astrobase isn’t just designing on paper—they have built a 46,000-square-foot assembly hub in Bengaluru housing India’s largest industrial metal 3D printer. They have also established a 21.5-acre rocket engine test facility in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh capable of handling intense 200-tonne thrust hot-fire tests.
What’s Next for ‘Everest’?
Following successful sub-scale hot-fire tests in late 2025 and high-speed pump trials in early 2026, Astrobase is preparing for a full-scale ground hot-fire test at its Anantapur test stand.
The company aims to cluster seven of these ‘Everest’ engines to power a partially reusable rocket to orbit by 2029. Coming just weeks after Skyroot Aerospace’s historic Vikram-1 launch, Everest confirms that India’s commercial space sector is no longer just catching up to the world; it is stepping up to lead it.