Building India’s Falcon 9 rocket; Inside Salesforce India’s AI ambitions

Hello,

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is set for a historic space journey.

Captain Shukla from the Indian Air Force will be among the four-member multi-country crew of Axiom Mission 4 that will spend two weeks on the International Space Station. The flight is scheduled for June 10.

The 39-year-old is also among four Indian Air Force officers shortlisted last year to travel on India’s first-ever human space flight, scheduled for 2027, BBC reported.

ICYMI: The stunning images from the 2025 Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards. Do check out the image One in a Billion, which was taken from the ISS by NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who recently returned from his latest mission.

Speaking of space, in Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, the protagonist Mark Watney shows that it is possible to grow food on Mars. But how realistic is terraforming Mars? In a paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers decided to deep dive into the possibility of making the Red Planet green. 

Lastly, while we have a realistic idea of what objects in space look like, thanks to images. Ever wondered what they smell like? Turns out that from rotten eggs to the sweet scent of almonds, cosmic bodies are smelly places. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Making reusable rockets from India
• Inside Salesforce India’s AI ambitions
• What Pride means

Here’s your trivia for today: What was the former name of Taiwan?

Startup

Making reusable rockets from India

Ethereal Exploration Guild’s goal is ambitious: to make one of India’s first reusable launch vehicles (RLVs).

“Launching a rocket and letting it fall into the ocean is like building a Boeing 747, flying it once, and scrapping it. We recognised early that true reusability is what shifts the equation. The economies of scale, particularly in the medium-lift segment, which currently holds 91% of the commercial market, made the decision clear,” remarks Manu J Nair, Co-founder and CEO of the startup.

Key takeaways:

• Ethereal Exploration Guild’s flagship vehicle is the Razor Crest Mk-1, which it is aiming to demonstrate (full-flight) by March 2027. 
• “With a 96-hour turnaround and a fleet of just 3-4 vehicles, we should be able to execute over 70 launches annually eliminating the need for mass manufacturing altogether,” says Nair.
• The startup is planning to grow its engineering team to 100 members in the next 12 months. It has also secured a 700,000 sq ft testing facility in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, making it India’s largest privately-owned rocket testing site.

Corporate

Inside Salesforce India’s AI ambitions

Salesforce, the global customer relationship management software company, is seeing continuous broad-based demand in India across sectors, with AI being the key driving force.

In an interaction with EnterpriseStory, Arun Kumar Parameswaran, EVP and MD of Sales and Distribution, Salesforce - South Asia, said even companies in heavy industry sectors of manufacturing and construction materials—which are slower in technology spending—have increased their AI investments.

The AI future:

• The Salesforce executive believes the impact of this technology platform is becoming even more relevant through agentic AI. AI agents can provide unbelievable speed of response,” he remarked.
• Salesforce, in a research report which surveyed 200 global human resource executives, noted that 85% of the HR leaders believe that within five years, most workforces will have humans and AI agents/digital labour working together.
• According to Parameswaran, the early adopters of AI platforms are digital-native companies, D2C firms, and technology enterprises. The biggest advantage of Salesforce is the amount of data it possesses on customer engagement.

Social Story

What Pride means

As Pride Month unfolds in a flurry of celebration and slogans, four queer individuals—each shaped by their intersections of caste, gender, indigeneity, and class—reflect on what Pride truly means to them. 

From memories of erasure and rejection to radical self-acceptance and collective resistance, their perspectives highlight Pride as more than a moment of visibility, but as a space for remembrance, assertion, and building communities where people can live authentically.

Bharat ke Innovators

AI-powered diagnostics

Founded in 2022, health tech startup Easiofy is making waves with its AI-powered imaging platform, ImagiXAI, which is specifically designed to bridge diagnostic disparities in India's Tier II, Tier III cities, and rural areas.

How Zerowatt optimises industrial energy use

Zerowatt uses AI to optimise industrial energy usage and reduce emissions. With over 120 MW of industrial load already under management across 100+ factories in India, Zerowatt delivers an average 10% reduction in energy use.

News & updates

• Free cybersecurity: Microsoft is offering European governments a free cybersecurity programme, launched on Wednesday, to bolster their defences against cyber threats, including those enhanced by artificial intelligence, it said.
• AI race: Nvidia’s newest chips have made gains in training large artificial intelligence systems, new data released on Wednesday showed, with the number of chips required to train large language models dropping dramatically. In the fastest results for Nvidia’s new chips, 2,496 Blackwell chips completed the training test in 27 minutes.
• Cybersecurity: A hacking group has been impersonating IT personnel to break into companies’ Salesforce tools, using the access for data theft and extortion, according to a new report from Google’s threat intelligence group. The hackers successfully breached the networks of at least 20 companies in the US and Europe.

What was the former name of Taiwan?

Answer: Formosa.

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