25-Year-Old Plans Reusable Spaceplane for India Station

Sree Supranayi grew up believing her mother's promise that she'd vacation on the moon by age 25. While that didn't happen, something even better did: she's now building the vehicles that could take others there.

The 25-year-old aerospace engineer co-founded AnduraX in June 2024 with fellow space enthusiast Nirvik Choudhary. Their mission is to create reusable spaceplanes that can ferry cargo and modules to India's planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2030.

When physical constraints kept Supranayi from becoming an astronaut, she found another path. If she couldn't go to space herself, she'd build the technology to help everyone get there.

The startup's vision extends beyond transportation. Supranayi dreams of making space a manufacturing hub, particularly for pharmaceutical research. In microgravity, protein crystals grow larger and purer than on Earth, potentially speeding up discovery of treatments for cancer, HIV, and Parkinson's disease.

Getting investors to believe in space manufacturing proved harder than rocket science. When the founders pitched their idea in 2024, investors dismissed it as science fiction. Nobody understood why manufacturing in space mattered or how it could work.

Family funding and government grants through programs like Nidhi Prayas, MeitY TIDE, and SISFS got AnduraX off the ground. Even now, convincing investors remains their biggest challenge.

The hard work is paying off. In May 2026, AnduraX successfully completed its first high-altitude balloon drop experiment, proving their guidance and navigation systems work. The test validated key technologies needed for their ARES spaceplane design.

Why This Inspires

Space manufacturing isn't actually new. The International Space Station has been running experiments for 20 years, and production is now scaling up. What's inspiring is watching a young engineer turn childhood dreams into practical technology that could benefit humanity.

Supranayi's father taught her that whatever you do, do it with absolute dedication. She's following that philosophy by tackling one of the most ambitious engineering challenges imaginable. Her journey shows that when astronaut dreams don't work out, there are other ways to reach the stars.

AnduraX targets demonstration missions by 2028 and cargo operations for India's space station by 2030. Eventually, they plan to develop human spaceflight capabilities. The girl who imagined moon vacations is building the vehicles that might actually make them possible.