IN AN important feat for the private space industry in India, a Bhubaneswar-based start-up has successfully flight-tested a prototype satellite that is designed to carry out some crucial steps in pharmaceutical manufacturing process under microgravity conditions of space.Serendipity Space, which began operations just last year, used a high-altitude balloon at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research balloon facility in Hyderabad to launch its satellite system and experience near-space like conditions. The satellite carried an ‘autonomous pharmaceutical factory’ that the company calls ‘Alchemy’.The company said the system operated continuously in harsh space conditions, and successfully executed the processes it was designed for, before making a controlled return to Earth.“The vehicle tested core technologies for the company’s future orbital fleet, including the advanced heatshield systems, avionics and its autonomous pharmaceutical factory, Alchemy,” the company said in a statement.Space-based drug manufacturing is a concept that has been studied and experimented with for decades. The microgravity conditions of space offer a conducive environment for completing some steps of the manufacturing process that are either difficult or impossible to perform on Earth because of impacts of gravity. Some gravity-related limitations on Earth even hamper the development of new drugs. Space-based medicine is, therefore, one of the most active areas of research in space sciences. The movement of molecules, or growth of crystals, happen very differently in space compared to Earth, and these often open up possibilities for designing completely novel pathways for manufacturing of drugs. Many such studies have been done on the International Space Station.However, what Serendipity has done is to develop a first-of-its-kind dedicated satellite system in which the manufacturing processes proceed autonomously, not needing any human supervision as has been the case with experiments on the International Space Station. The company said the satellite was ready to be deployed in Lower Earth Orbits (LEO), about 400-500 km from the Earth’s surface. It is designed to stay in space for a few weeks or months, and is equipped with re-entry systems to make a comeback to the Earth.“It can make a safe landing on water or on land. We prefer that it returns on land. It is easier to recover, and safer for maintaining the integrity of the molecules. We have identified a few sites that are suitable for this,” Antariksh Parichha, co-founder of Serendipity Space, told The Indian Express.Story continues below this adThe company raised its first round of funding in July last year, and designed and built a fully functional prototype satellite in under five months, the statement said.