Dhruva Space to Launch First Commercial Mission LEAP-1 Aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

Dhruva Space is set to launch its first commercial space mission, LEAP-1, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in the third quarter of 2025, marking a significant step in its commercial journey and strengthening strategic space ties between India, Australia and the United States.

The LEAP-1 mission will carry two advanced payloads developed by Australian firms Akula Tech’s Nexus-01, featuring an onboard AI module, and Esper Satellites’ OTR-2, a hyperspectral imager—both hosted on Dhruva Space’s indigenously developed P-30 satellite platform.

This marks the company’s first commercial deployment after successfully qualifying the P-30 bus on ISRO’s PSLV-C58 POEM-3 mission in January 2024.

“Following a successful qualification of the P-30 onboard ISRO’s PSLV-C58, Dhruva Space is excited to take its indigenously-developed P-30 satellite platform to the global market,” Sanjay Nekkanti, CEO and co-founder of Dhruva Space, said.

The LEAP-1 platform integrates Ground Station-as-a-Service (GSaaS) and Dhruva's proprietary integrated space operations and command suite (ISOCS) for real-time mission control and data downlinking.

Akula Tech’s AI module is designed to process data on board and retrain machine learning models in orbit, speeding up decision-making for use cases such as fire detection and spectral anomaly identification.

“This mission will be the first step towards Akula Tech’s vision of developing next-generation satellites in Australia,” Preetham Akula, CEO of Akula Tech, said.

Nishq Ravindranath, chief AI officer at Akula Tech, added, “Our space-ready AI model optimisation technology allows us to run geospatial models efficiently in orbit. These models will even retrain over time using live sensor data, essentially putting a geospatial analyst in space.”

Esper Satellite Imagery brings its fourth mission to life with the OTR-2 payload, offering low-cost, high-quality hyperspectral imaging.

“What makes this achievement even more remarkable is that we’ve funded our entire OTR campaign for under $1 million,” Shoaib Iqbal, co-founder and CEO of Esper Satellite Imagery, said.

The mission’s emblem, the LEAP-1 mission patch, reflects the collaboration across India, Australia and the US, symbolising AI, hyperspectral observation and space innovation.

LEAP-1 represents a move from technology demonstration to full-scale commercial services. It also signals Dhruva Space’s readiness to scale its hosted payload operations, with growing interest from clients in India, Italy, France and beyond.