Lightweight GaN-based power processing and control units for Hall-effect thrusters — under development by the team that built PPCU-class hardware for ISRO.
A Hall thruster is a plasma device wrapped in a harder power-electronics problem: kilovolt-class anode supplies, ignition transients, floating heater and keeper rails, magnet control — space-grade, and qualified.
Sources: NASA NTRS 20160005342 · GAO-25-107591 · CORDIS 101082685 & 101081987 — "the power electronics [are] one of the major cost drivers of an electric propulsion system."
We surveyed 23 electric-propulsion thruster makers worldwide. Nearly all build PPUs in-house — plasma teams doing power-supply engineering — because the merchant market barely exists.
"There are few PPUs on the market now, with most companies building them in-house — a time-consuming process that becomes harder as the power level rises."
Steve Kiser, CEO, Phase Four — Payload, 2026
Survey: company sites, satsearch, IEPC papers, Payload. Merchant vendors: SITAEL, Airbus Crisa, TAS-Belgium/ETCA, CPE, SETS, ASP GmbH, EPC Space, ExoTerra, OHB.
Even after the 2024 ITAR-to-EAR reform, US PPUs need an export licence to every destination except Australia, Canada and the UK. India is not on the list.
SITAEL: the HT-100 "and all the key sub-system components are fully based on European, ITAR-free technologies." Rocket Lab markets its new Gauss line as ITAR/EAR-free for constellations.
A flight-heritage, export-unencumbered PPCU house in India serves domestic demand license-free and the world as a neutral second source.
Sources: Federal Register 2024-23975/23958 · space.commerce.gov ITAR clarification · sitael.com · rocketlabcorp.com/gauss-propulsion.
GSAT-9 flew ISRO's plasma-thruster EP for station-keeping; the programme is now moving EP into its mainline GEO buses.
The 5.4 kW thruster now heading for in-orbit validation on TDS-01 — the same thruster class our founding team's PPCU was built to drive.
Pixxel-led consortium contracted by IN-SPACe: 12 satellites, privately built and operated.
India's leading private satellite maker, Pixxel, sources its electric propulsion from Exotrail — in France.
Orbital Today, Feb 2026 — the clearest possible demand signal for a domestic supplier
ISRO's PPCU is internal. Bellatrix integrates vertically for its own thrusters. Avionics houses (Ananth, Centum) sell no EP power product. Merchant EP power electronics in India: nobody.
Sources: isro.gov.in (SPT life test) · PIB (GSAT-9 EP) · SatNews (Allied Orbits) · exotrail.com (Pixxel).
One lightweight GaN-based product family under development, three power classes, for thruster makers and satellite primes — so plasma companies can stay plasma companies.
Small-sat Hall systems and cathode heaters. The volume tier — the "couple decks of cards" market the US is only now entering.
LEO station-keeping and orbit topping. The workhorse class of commercial constellations — comms satellites on EP grow 111 → 532 by 2030.
Orbit raising and all-electric buses. Where our 6.5 kW silicon ZVZCS programme heritage lives.
Why GaN: a PPU's mass lives mostly in its electromagnetics, and magnetics shrink with switching frequency — wide-bandgap devices are the route to a substantially lighter unit per kW. Our field analysis: vidyut.space/landscape/.
Every block has to become a qualified space power product in its own right. An interactive version of this system lives at vidyut.space.
Our founding team designed the power processing and control units for ISRO's 300 mN and 75 mN stationary plasma thrusters — orbit raising and station-keeping — including ISRO's first ZVZCS-topology power module.
This is not a team that read about PPUs. It is the team whose PPU the Indian programme was built on — now outside the fence, free to sell it to everyone.
Dollar forecasts for this market vary 15× by scope, so we don't lead with one. The defensible numbers are adoption share and unit counts — and a merchant precedent that already worked once.
Thales Alenia Space Belgium sold 56 flight PPUs to Airbus, IAI, Safran, SES, Intelsat, Eutelsat and others — the merchant model at prime scale.
IEPC / TAS-Belgium ETCA programme history
Sources: SpaceInsider 2025 EP outlook · IEPC/ETCA history · Inc42 Indian spacetech 2025.
Power topology. Modern converters. Space-grade control and quals. Two of the three have already built PPCU-class and high-reliability space electronics inside the two hardest customers on Earth: ISRO and a European prime.
Freeze the modular lightweight GaN-based architecture, informed by the bench-proven ZVZCS stage; radiation-data-backed GaN parts selection and derating; lab build-out in Bengaluru; first two hires.
Engineering model through thermal and EMI screening; ignition and transient campaigns against a thruster simulator.
Coupled firing with a partner thruster in a vacuum facility; first LOI-to-order conversions; IN-SPACe authorization in hand.
Beacon's $400K anchors a $500K pre-seed and takes vidyut from a working breadboard to a thruster-coupled lightweight GaN engineering model — the artefact that converts India's EP demand into orders.
Go-to-market into thruster makers and primes · IN-SPACe authorization · manufacturing scale-up when orders land.
MilTek Technologies Pvt Ltd (2019) · ISRO-VSSC registered vendor · Bengaluru, registered office Thiruvananthapuram · bootstrapped, no external capital to date.
EP is becoming the default drivetrain, the PPU is its bottleneck, the merchant market has one supplier outside the US/EU — and the team that built ISRO's own PPCU is available, in India, exactly once.