Cosmochute plans lunar terrain and low-gravity test rig at IIMA Ventures
File photograph: Cosmochute founders, via Business Standard. Not an image of the planned simulator.Left to right: Amit Chowdhary (COO and co-founder); Janhavi Gore (CEO and co-founder); Dhruv Alok Sangal (CTO and co-founder).Ahmedabad startup Cosmochute is building a Moon-surface simulator at IIMA Ventures to test subsystems for its modular lunar rover, The Times of India reports. The team aims to have the facility ready by January. The planned rig combines lunar-like regolith, or loose rocky surface material, with a weight-support arrangement intended to mimic part of the Moon's lower gravity. An artificial Sun will help test how rover cameras and navigation software cope with direct glare. This is ground-test infrastructure under construction, not a completed low-gravity facility or a rover operating on the Moon. Cosmochute's own product pages describe a modular rover, a towable payload trailer and a payload-survival system. Its $1.5 million pre-seed round was announced in October and is not new funding in this report.
DTT summary based on The Times of India's report. The full article is on the publisher's site.
Additional reporting
Technology details
Planned simulator at IIMA Ventures in Ahmedabad; January readiness target reported November 2.
Lunar-like loose surface material and a weight-support rig to approximate lower-gravity conditions.
Test direct-camera glare and improve navigation and close-proximity control algorithms.
Facility under construction; no lunar deployment or completed test campaign established.
$1.5 million pre-seed announced October 15, 2026; not a new round.