Abhijit Bhutey and Vishal Reddy on Inbound Aerospace's microgravity platform in space

Inbound Aerospace’s founders Abhijit Bhutey, Aravind IB and Vishal Reddy are developing an unmanned reusable spacecraft for microgravity experiments. Image courtesy the company.In this episode, I’m joined by Abhijit Bhutey and Vishal Reddy, co-founders of Inbound Aerospace, a startup incubated at IIT Madras. The discussion covers the origins of their journey — from an academic collaboration focused on microgravity research to building a company designed for commercial space experimentation.They started simply with how the idea came to Aravind IB, their fellow founder, when as a PhD student at IIT Madras, he was exploring microgravity through drop tower experiments. The idea became a startup when Aravind was joined by Vishal, whose background includes graduate studies in the United States, and Abhijit, a former pilot with the Indian Navy who aspired to space entrepreneurship.In this conversation they explain the challenges and opportunities in creating usable microgravity platforms, detailing Inbound Aerospace’s mission to develop a reusable spacecraft that will carry research projects to low earth orbit and bring experiments back safely to earth.Abhijit and Vishal give us insights into microgravity’s usefulness in biotech, materials science, and semiconductors, and explain how their vehicle is being designed for efficient re-entry and autonomous landing. The founders also share early milestones, including team building, subsystem testing, and initial funding, and reflect on broader trends and gaps in the Indian space-tech ecosystem.