Meet Ted Solomon and his friends, the Made-in-India Rocketmen

This founders are all students of Chennai's Hindustan University and the aeronautics company operates from Hindustan University's incubator
Ted Solomon set up the company and then brought it all his class mates from college to join him in his venture
Ted Solomon set up the company and then brought it all his class mates from college to join him in his venture

Twenty-one year old Ted Solomon's father has always been passionate about flying kites, so it was only natural that the passion passed on to Ted as well. But it was not just the kite flying that got Ted excited; the whole concept of flying got him curious at a very young age. So when it was time to choose a course, his automatic choice was aeronautical engineering. And just a few months after his graduation, he's set up an aeronautics company called Aero2Astro.

"I joined Hindustan University for my aeronautical engineering degree and spent four years there. But the funny thing is despite doing a course I liked, I wasn't very keen on attending any classes and spent most of my time roaming," he said laughing. The carefree Ted only changed his ways after a professor in his college pointed out to him that he wasting his life by not being more involved. But unlike any other student, this didn't mean that Ted immediately went back to attending classes — what he did get interested in were competitions.

Ain't Rocket Science: Interestingly, Ted Solomon barely went to his classes in Hindustan but things changed for him

Ted realised that he enjoyed working on projects and models more than exams and assignments. "I participated in an aeromodelling competition and realised that I didn't even know the basics. I wasn't able to qualify for the next round but I started studying and learning more from then on," the 21-year-old said. The competitions got tougher but Ted started getting better at them.

His activities led him to others who also shared similar interests and together they worked on new ideas, "Most other students didn't show any interest in these challenges. So only a professor of mine and a few friends sat together and discussed ideas," he explained. It was on one of these occasions that Ted came up with the idea of developing a device that could help injured soldiers during war, "I basically want to design a UAV or an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle designed in such a way that it to would be able to provide medical assistance to an injured person. The UAV should be able to calculate the pulse, heart rate and also basic essentials and take this information to a camp close by where doctors are present The doctors should be able to determine what is wrong and send in the needed medication and advice," he explained.

Since he came up with such an interesting idea, his professor suggested that he continue with the project after college, actually complete it and get it patented, "My professor said the whole idea would go without meaning if I did not create it and give it to the Army. So when it came to placements, I was the only person who did not attend even one interview. I had made up my mind to set up Aero2Astro." 

 Aero2Astro is an Indian Research and Development start-up by students.

Vision is to become a private R&D organization to operate on space technology and UAV technology. 

The team is working towards building model rockets and payload as satellite and launch it by July 2018 

We focus on products which serves the world with our wide application UAV’s and space technology exploration.

But Aero2Astro was not just set up to work on the defence project, Ted aims to create more jobs for students who pass out with an aeronautical engineering degree,"Everyone always says there's no job opportunity for students like me, so I decided to create it myself. Get students together to come up with new ideas and work on them." He adds, "We focus on robotics and space technology. In other countries, there are companies that privately launch satellites, so we are trying to work on creating our own launch pad. No one has ever tested a rocket in Chennai, we hope to create our model rockets and launch them soon," he explained.

Besides these projects, the company also conducts workshops for school and college students, "We are currently working with three schools and one college. We hope to reach out to more in the coming academic year." Over the last nine months, the company that started off with Rs 3000-4000 has managed to raise Rs 4 lakh and the money that they make from their workshops is being used for their projects.

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