Hyderabad Startup Plans 'Robotic Hug' To Clean Up Space Junk

The next rocket lifting off from India's spaceport at Sriharikota may carry something far more unusual than satellites. It will carry the first step towards cleaning up Earth's increasingly cluttered orbital neighbourhood. A young startup aspires for creating wealth from waste, one space junk at a time! Incidentally on last few occasions ISRO has been leading the global effort in creating zero space junk in its rocket launches.

When Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 takes to the skies on its maiden orbital mission, one of its most closely watched payloads will be Mission Embrace, a robotic technology developed by Hyderabad based startup Cosmoserve Space. 

The mission has an ambitious goal: demonstrate what the company says could be the world's first soft robotic capture system in orbit. If successful, the technology could one day help remove dead satellites and dangerous orbital debris that threaten spacecraft around the globe.

Think of it as a gentle robotic hug in space.

Instead of grabbing a satellite with rigid claws or mechanical arms, Cosmoserve has developed a soft robotic capture mechanism designed to gently latch onto defunct satellites and other non-cooperative objects drifting through orbit. The technology is aimed at solving one of the biggest challenges facing the space industry today: space junk.

The scale of the problem is staggering.

According to NASA and international orbital debris monitoring agencies, Earth orbit contains tens of thousands of tracked objects and millions of smaller fragments. NASA's Orbital Debris Program notes that there are approximately 50,000 large trackable objects in orbit, while the number of millimetre sized debris fragments is on the order of 100 million. These small pieces travel at several kilometres per second and can seriously damage or destroy spacecraft.

European Space Agency statistics paint an even more worrying picture. As of 2026, about 45,860 objects are regularly tracked in orbit. Scientists estimate there are about 1.2 million debris objects between one and ten centimetres in size and roughly 140 million fragments between one millimetre and one centimetre. More than 660 breakup events, collisions and explosions have contributed to this growing cloud of debris.

Much of this debris originates from decades of space activity led primarily by major spacefaring nations, especially the United States of America and the former Soviet and Russian programs, which account for the largest historical share of objects launched into orbit and the resulting debris population. As thousands of new satellites continue to be launched every year, orbital congestion is becoming one of the defining challenges of the modern space age.

This is where Cosmoserve sees a business opportunity.

The startup is developing Active Debris Removal technology using a dual spacecraft architecture. A robotic servicer spacecraft would eventually be capable of approaching, capturing and helping remove defunct satellites from orbit. The company says its solution could perform such missions at roughly one tenth the cost of comparable technologies available today.

At the heart of the concept is Mission Embrace.

The demonstration system was reportedly developed from concept to flight ready hardware in just four months, an unusually rapid development cycle even by global startup standards. The technology underwent reviews by independent experts, including former ISRO scientists, before receiving flight clearance.

Leading the effort is Chiranjeevi Phanindra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cosmoserve Space. "Mission Embrace forms part of India's first private orbital launch carrying satellite payloads while also attempting the world's first demonstration of soft robotic capture in orbit. We developed this technology from concept to flight ready hardware in just four months within a company that is less than a year old, without compromising engineering rigor," he said.

Phanindra told NDTV, "the petals or the arms in the mission Embrace flying on Mission Aagaman are scaled down version of the original ones and will capture a dummy target of 1 kg. The original Reviver spacecraft with soft robotic petals are designed to capture dead satellites of mass of about 500 kg".

He added, "Through this mission with Skyroot, we are demonstrating how rapidly India's private space ecosystem can innovate through collaboration. Mission Embrace is an important milestone in advancing technologies that will enable orbital sustainability and space debris removal."

The mission will ride aboard Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket, itself a landmark vehicle in India's commercial space journey. Vikram-1 is the first privately developed Indian orbital launch vehicle designed to place small satellites into orbit. The rocket stands about seven storeys tall and uses three solid propulsion stages along with a liquid fuel upper stage for precise orbital insertion.

The launch is a critical moment not only for Skyroot but also for India's growing private space ecosystem. After successfully launching the Vikram-S suborbital rocket in 2022, Skyroot is now attempting to become one of the first private Indian companies to independently place payloads into orbit. Mission Embrace will be one of the most closely watched experiments aboard the flight.

If the technology works, Cosmoserve could one day become what might be called Earth's first orbital janitor sanitation worker from India.

While "Space Safai Karamchari" may sound humorous, the reality is serious. Every inactive satellite removed from orbit lowers collision risks and helps protect billions of dollar's worth of spacecraft, communications systems and scientific missions.

In space, one person's garbage may become another person's business opportunity.

And from Hyderabad, this young startup hopes to prove that cleaning up the heavens can create both safer orbits and a new commercial industry. If Mission Embrace succeeds aboard Vikram-1, India could find itself at the forefront of a future space economy built not just on launching satellites, but also on cleaning up after them.