The defence ministry has invited domestic aerospace companies to design and develop airship-based high-altitude pseudo satellites for the Indian Air Force under a Rs 15,000-crore programme, advancing a major indigenous push in long-endurance surveillance and communications infrastructure.
The proposed AS-HAPS platforms are intended to operate in the stratosphere at about 20 km, or roughly 65,000 feet, above commercial air traffic and weather systems. Unlike satellites in low-earth orbit, these lighter-than-air helium platforms are designed to stay aloft for months and be repositioned over strategic areas. The programme is being pursued under the Make-I procurement category, under which the government can fund up to 70% of prototype development costs.
The system is expected to carry indigenous payloads including long-range surveillance radars, optical cameras and electronic intelligence sensors. It is also expected to serve as a relay layer between ground networks and satellites. The capability sits between conventional high-altitude drones, which typically fly around 12 km, and low-earth orbit satellites operating hundreds of kilometres above the planet.
The project is being steered by the Directorate of Operations (Remote) of the Indian Air Force. The platform brief points to persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements over hostile borders, where endurance, repositioning and recurring cost become central design considerations. The airship-based format could also allow months-long station keeping at lower cost than satellite-only architectures.
The programme follows a May 2025 demonstration in which DRDO flew a payload-bearing prototype to about 17 km over Madhya Pradesh. The next stage now shifts attention to private-sector aerospace and defence engineering capacity, including firms working with iDEX-linked initiatives and indigenous sensor, avionics, materials and platform-control ecosystems.
For Indian defence technology companies, the AS-HAPS programme expands the addressable market beyond drones, satellites and tactical communications into stratospheric platforms. It also creates a systems-integration challenge across aerostat engineering, autonomous navigation, payload miniaturisation, secure communications, power management and mission software.
