Telangana student secures third place in Viasat Space for Good India Challenge 2025 with orbital settlements project

IIT Kanpur student Arun Teja from Telangana won third place in the Viasat: Space for Good India Challenge 2025 for his project ‘Stellar’, proposing orbital space settlements to enable self-sustaining space industries and advance humanity’s presence beyond Earth.

Hyderabad: A Telangana student who is pursuing second year aerospace engineering at IIT Kanpur secured third place in the Viasat: Space for Good India Challenge 2025, which was recently held in New Delhi.

Arun Teja through his project ‘Stellar’ proposed establishing orbital space settlements to serve as manufacturing hubs that helped earn third position in the competition. He was selected from over 9,000 applicants from across the country.

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Through his project ‘Stellar’, Teja introduced orbital space settlements as a means to enable self-sustaining space industries and facilitate ISAM (In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing) applications, creating a sustainable space ecosystem.

By integrating ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilisation), orbital manufacturing, and sustainable energy solutions, ‘Stellar’ aims to advance humanity’s presence beyond Earth, he said.

Recognising the idea, the Viasat, a global satellite communications company, presented an educational grant of Rs.1 lakh to Teja. “Representing Telangana nationally has been a proud moment,” he said.

Mayank Golechha from BITS Pilani emerged as the winner. He presented ‘MagnoSat’, which proposed using a series of electromagnetic rings in various orbits to accelerate satellites without traditional fuel.

Bhoomi Raiyani from Nirma University bagged second position for project ‘Plasma Pathways’, which focused on a future space communication concept