This Made-In-India UAV Flies at 20,000 Feet

Arctus Aerospace has built a UAV called AX1 which is capable of flying at 20,000 feet with a 50 kg payload. 00:00 - Introducing the Arctus AX1 00:32 - In Conversation With Shreepoorna S Rao 04:58 - The Challenges of Building an Aerospace Startup On the 10th of April, 2026, Shreepoorna S Rao and the Arctus Aerospace team inaugurated the Arctus HQ in Bengaluru and unveiled their new UAV, the AX1. This is Arctus' first tech demonstrator unmanned aircraft. The AX1 has a 20,000 feet cruising altitude, a 50 kg max payload, and an endurance of 10 hours. Much of this developed was enabled by Bengaluru, which is an ecosystem that enables founders to go from concept to hardware at a very fast pace. They have access to high-quality engineers, suppliers, early customers, and capital all within a tight loop. Over the last few months, Arctus Aerospace has been heads down, designing, building, and testing, and Shreepoorna S Rao believes that the AX1 is a direct output of that process.